Japan Navigator

Yesterday, when the weather cleared a bit, I went out towards the middle of the afternoon. As I could not go far, I visited the (free) Sawanotsuru “Traditional Brewery” Museum, the only sake museum in the Kobe area I had not yet seen. It stands south of Oishi Station on the Hanshin line, in one of the most ugly areas you can imagine. The museum, however, was great: an excellent collection of traditional tools, in a traditional kura that had been carefully reconstructed after the 1995 earthquake. I was shown the only two pillars that still stood straight after the quake, people now touch them for “good luck” and “long life,” I was told.

[Sawa no Tsuru Museum]

During the reconstruction, part of the site was excavated and there an ancient sake press was found, from an even older version of the brewery. Large ceramic pots were set in the ground to receive the pressed sake. Elsewhere in the museum I saw a large collection of brewing vats and also vats for steaming the rice - the koshiki, with a hole in the bottom to allow the steam to rise up. This hole would be covered with a bamboo mat and the rice would go on top. The wooden koshiki would then be placed on top of an iron vat in which water was being boiled. There were also the smaller vats and spades for making the yeast starter (of course according to the old Kimoto process, where the rice is crushed with spades for hours and hours until it becomes a sort of puree in which then a natural lactic acid will develop). There were many sturdy cotton bags, used for pressing the main mash, and also a few presses of the Fune type, with heavy stones to exert pressure on the lid and bags with sake and lees inside the press. Upstairs was a particularly beautiful replica of a Koji room, with the small Koji boxes neatly stocked against the wall. One of the best brewery museums in the Nada area.

[Sawa no Tsuru Museum, Koji Room]

The shop next to the museum was a bit of a disappointment, as only few types of sake were available. What struck me, by the way, was the average high age of the other visitors. When I visited Harushika for sake tasting, I saw mainly young people, and many women, making me optimistic about the future of sake. At Sawanotsuru I only found a group of elderly citizens of the male gender… Is this indicative of the difference between a large mass producer like Sawanotsuru and a maker of only premium sakes like Harushika? Or has it to do with the difference in taste of their sakes - Sawanotsuru’s sake is dry and rather sour, typical of the “masculine” sake of the Nada district, while many of Harushika’s sakes for example have a much sweeter profile.

[Taki no Koi]

Next I also visited the nearby Taki no Koi (“Carp in the Waterfall” - “the carp climbing up the waterfall will become a dragon” = a Chinese myth about persevering against all odds ) Brewery, which operates a shop in a beautiful traditional building “Sake Shokan” - unfortunately also in a terribly ugly spot, southwest of Mikage station on the Hanshin line. The brewery stood rather forlorn between flats and factories, and there were no other visitors. But they sold great sake, being one of the earliest brewers to re-introduce “pure rice” or junmai sake in 1971. I tasted a wonderful junmai ginjo, unpasteurized and in genshu form (without added water, so with an alcochol percentage of 19-20%), which was like an explosion of sweet tastes in the mouth. This sake was stored in a tank in the shop, and bottled while I watched. Customers can themselves write their unique label. The other sakes of Taki no Koi, too, were mostly (junmai) ginjos, which seems to be the specialty of this brewery. I was given several sakes to taste in a small plastic cup; there was also the possibility to taste a larger amount for a fee.

A wonderful place to which I will be returning, despite the forbidding surroundings!

P.S. In the Hanshin store opposite Mikage Station, I found a good Conveyerbelt Sushi restaurant, Hokkai Sozai, with color-coded dishes to indicate various price levels, and great sushi. They served a nice junmai ginjo as well, under their own label but brewed by an (unnamed) Nara company from Imaichi… (could it be Nara Toyosawa Shuzo, the only brewer from Imaichi listed on the site of the Japan Sake Breweries Association? They sell their own sake under the brand Toyoshuku and have a sake bar with the possibility to try their sake in their kura in Imaichi. Something for my next Nara visit!).

P.S.2 Any suggestions for great sake? Share your recommendations below!