Sake synaesthesia

Ever wish you could see sake flavours? You might be in luck.

Japanese national broadcaster NHK reports on a collaboration between an Akita Prefecture brewery and a local plant for electronics manufacturer TDK that resulted in a machine that plots sake flavour components on a graph so you actually can tell what’s inside the bottle by looking at the graph on the label.

195-year old Tenju Shuzo clearly isn’t afraid of new developments, as they turned to technology to find a better way of communicating the different flavours of their sake to consumers.

The project was initiated by TDK employee Tsunemitsu Kanemori, who discovered Akita sake when he was seconded to the nearby factory. TDK already had machines that could separate components in materials used in car and smartphone manufacturing, so he thought–why not do the same for sake?

The resulting radar chart has five axes (complexity, sweetness, acidity, depth, finish length) surrounded by a circle indicating levels of apple (ethyl caproate) and banana (isoamyl acetate) aroma, and a light blue background with bubbles indicating the level of residual gas.

On the left, a flavour-first sake with restrained aroma, short finish and minimal residual gas, and on the right an aromatic sake with acidity and high levels of residual gas. (Image © NHK from the article linked below)

Tenju Shuzo and TDK have been collaborating since 2018 to analyse taste, aroma and residual gas in sake to improve quality, and the fruity and fizzy product on the right above is the seventh product developed using the charting system. And it turns out that the founder of TDK is actually from Akita Prefecture, so he would presumably approve.

The original version of the radar chart is credited to the National Research Institute of Brewing.

The technology works by separating and measuring the components in sake, such as organic acids, amino acids and sugars. (Image © NHK from the article linked below)

Tenju Shuzo executive director Hitoshi Ooi was happy with the result, noting that 90% of people surveyed said the graph was useful when choosing a sake they didn’t already know. (77 respondents) He hopes the qualitative nature of the graph will make it easier for consumers to see what suits their own taste.

Ooi says the brewery used the analysis system to proactively develop an aromatic sake with high residual gas in an attempt to capture a new market segment that would not be attracted to traditional sake.

TDK are now offering the analysis as a service to other breweries with a price tag of JPY 100,000 for 1–5 samples, which does not include the right to use the chart on labels. Kanemori noted that the technology could also be used to digitise the traditional sake flavour profiles of Akita Prefecture for future reference.

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Sources
日本酒の味わいを「見える化」電子部品メーカーの技術を応用 (NHK, 24 Mar 2025, Japanese)
TDK Sake Project (Tenju Shuzo, not dated, Japanese)
全国の酒蔵必見！日本酒の味わいをパッと見える化 (TDK, not dated, Japanese)

Exactly what you expect when you convert the new guy at the local electronics plant to sake and he has one too many before going to the new product development meeting. Love it.

It also fits in with the theme of digitising information that was previously managed by experience and/or intuition, like the Moromi Yell spreadsheet developed by the Nagoya Regional Tax Bureau of the National Tax Agency.