Sake News from Japan

PR Times carries a press release for the recent announcement of the President’s Prize and Jury Prizes for Kura Master 2020. Judging went ahead in Paris on 31 August, where a jury of 51 top sommeliers, including four awarded the prestigious French title meilleur...

Goo News reports on a 150 year old sake brewery and the single-minded determination and inventiveness they’re using to overcome the second great threat in their history - the pandemic. Watanabe Shuzōten in Hida, Gifu Prefecture are the long-established makers of...

Hiroki Itō reports for Asahi Digital on an old-but-new Yamaguchi brewery. Kodama Shuzō was founded 150 years ago in Kikugawa, Shimonoseki but stopped brewing around 2005 when ageing staff could no longer keep production running. The company kept on shipping their...

Excite News carries an article by Takamasa Kujirai charting the popularity and evolution of non-alcoholic drinks. A lot of the article is about beer and chūhai, but I still found it worth translating to get an idea of what wider concerns the sake industry is – or is...

The Kochi Shinbun carries a story about a new yeast developed by brewing giant Gekkeikan for a new junmai entry in their THE SHOT series of 180 ml bottled sake. While many sake breweries are small (tiny) family-owned and run businesses, a handful – including Gekkeikan...

PR Times carries a press release for THE KAN, a sake made to be drunk like a coffee. Its dry version was very popular when released last year, so Yama no Kotobuki Shuzō have brought it back this year as a way to spend a cosy night in with some atsukan [熱燗, sake heated...

News site Jiji.com carries a press release announcing round 2 of Nihonshu Nyumon (日本酒入門) – an introduction to sake from the company Warehouse Japan. [The first round was announced in August 2020 and looks identical.] The service ships samples and a textbook to serve...

The Kyodo Keizai Shinbun reports on a new project from the Tokyo University of Agriculture that aims to offer emergency support to 41 sake breweries across the country. Based in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, the Tokyo University of Agriculture (東京農業大学, Tōkyō Nōgyō Daigaku or...

Can’t decide if you want your sake hot or cold? PR Times has a press release for a piece of equipment that will do both. Hiyakan, a heating-and-cooling sake server designed to manage anything from hiya (10°C) to atsukan (55°C), is currently raising funds on Japanese...