Sake News from Japan

I had prepared some sake and chocolate for tasting (both alone and together) over the May bank holiday weekend, but we didn't get around to it. Instead, we ticked a very old item off our to-do list and cleared out our kellar (underground storage room) to prepare for...

April was busy for MAME, with not one but two tastings! (They held a fruit tasting earlier in the month.)This tasting was much more focused than the ones I'd been to previously. One coffee variety from one farm, processed three ways and sent to four roasters. Although...

I had only heard about pairing aged sake (koshu, 古酒) with chocolate, so I was surprised when Matthew Headland (@connectniigata) suggested pairing non-aged sakes. I had plenty of chocolate left over from our Easter chocolate tasting, so I decided to give it a try! The...

I had read about the effect of drinking vessels during the WSET Level 3 course, but all the tasting during the classroom sessions was from their ISO glasses so although we experienced a lot of variety (including the sake sakes warm and cold) we never tested the...

Easter. We're a big fan of Lindt chocolate bunnies, but this year - after getting into tasting through sake and coffee - I decided to go for an Easter chocolate tasting instead! I had no idea where to start, so after hearing about Eagranie Yuh's Chocolate Tasting...

We weren't organised enough to go anywhere over Easter, so we stayed local, enjoying some long walks with friends and doing a few things around the house. Plus I went to a tasting at MAME and we had a chocolate tasting at home! Although I'd been to coffee cupping...

Mathieu and Emi held a special tasting session at MAME on Sunday 9 April to share some coffees that Mathieu had brought back from a trip to the US, specifically to Chicago. A friend insisted that he visit famous roasters Intelligentsia, and he ended up spending four...

Why a sake course? Although I had known about sake for years, I developed a keener interest when a Japanese viniculture student whose academic work I had translated starting promoting his national drink - sake. His marketing material for breweries combined historical,...