Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout the country. Join today!   Doburoku is considered one of the oldest styles of sake. It is a simpler style of fermentation where there is not the usual three-step addition of rice, koji, and water (sandan jikomi) to the starter. The result is a very thick brew, thicker than nigori, and lower in alcohol than your typical sake. Ryuta Nakashima of Koyama Honke explains, “Doburoku has a long history, dating back to rice cultivation in the Yayoi period. From the Edo period to the Meiji period, d ..read more

  Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout the country. Join today!   My sake-loving father Kuni always calls himself a Junmai Guy – I didn’t understand until recently that this was a dig on aruten sakes, which are sakes made with the addition of distilled alcohol. It’s a category with some heavy baggage, with overall decline in popularity as brewers tell me that junmais are sold more these days. But I’m here to tell ya that aruten sakes of today are awesome! Simply put, sakes are divided into two camps: junmai or aruten. Junm ..read more

Mizuba Tea's Daily Matcha is something we've carried since the early days of Umami Mart. In fact, it has been since Lauren Purvis of Mizuba Tea Co. visited our store in 2014, so that's a whole decade of Mizuba Tea's matcha living on our shelves. Customers come in all the time for the Daily Matcha, as it has the perfect balance of umami, bitterness, and that distinct earthiness that is only found in shade grown, stone milled matcha. Although we've chatted with Lauren about matcha, fun drinks, and holiday orders for the past ten years, last week was the first time we set aside an hour to t ..read more

Shochu Gumi is our quarterly subscription service with 80+ members throughout the country. Join today! We’re starting 2024 with a big bang here at Shochu Gumi HQ! Yoko and I are fresh off the heels of a trip to Okinawa, where we toured several awamori distilleries and makers of Tsubota Yaki pottery, Shuri Ori textiles, and Bingata dyed fabric. It was a hugely inspirational trip, and I’m thrilled to feature an awamori from Ikehara Shuzo, a distillery we visited on Ishigaki Island. This month we celebrate women with our annual Female Frontrunners feature. No matter where we are in the ..read more

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout the country. Join today!  It feels especially meaningful to write about women in the sake brewing industry after just getting back from a weeklong awamori distillery tour in Okinawa, where Kayoko and I were always the only women in the room. It’s the little things you notice when you are the only woman in the room – questions posed are often directed at the other men in the room, and the other women you see are the ones you pass by the reception desk, on the way into the meeting rooms. These cues are ..read more

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout the country. Join today!  People often ask me if rice strains have the same effect on sake as the grape varietals have on wine. My answer is yes and no. Yes, because different rice strains are ideal for growing in specific regions and can result in certain qualities in the finished sake. But also no; there are so many other factors that can have an effect on the result, such as rice polishing (which can affect how light or full-bodied a sake is) or the yeast used (which can determine its ar ..read more

Visiting President Chobei Yamamoto at Yucho Shuzo in Gose City was one of the most educational brewery visits I’ve ever experienced. He invited me into his meeting room, where he had piles of very old books on Nara’s history and sake-making. He eagerly pointed out obscure passages that hinted at how monks were making sake back in the 1400s. Yamamoto-san studies history to build upon it. President of Yucho Shuzo, Chobei Yamamoto showing passages in old texts about sake-making. Old journal about sake making in Nara. Diagram showing the layout of the sake production site in old Nara. One of  ..read more

Yoshitani Woodworks was one of my favorite stops during my trip to Nara back in March. Yuki Yoshitani (the son) of the operation was there to greet me. He was energetic and really wants to visit the U.S. to see Ohtani play in the major leagues. I hope that one day he comes our to watch a game and visit Umami Mart. Yuki Yoshitani and me in front of Yoshitani Woodworks For 700 years, Yoshitani Woodworks has been making sanbo (wooden pedestals), used mainly for putting offerings like mochi for the new year. They use a slit technique to bend wood with no use of nails. Worker bending wood This tec ..read more

Me with Ohara-san, master brewer of Shroyakuji in Nara, at the birthplace of Bodaimoto and Seishu During my time in Nara in March 2023, I visited woodworkers, ceramicists, textile makers, chasen craftsmen, and sake brewers. I found Nara to be compact, charming, and delicious; I could see myself living there. While Kyoto is inundated with tourists, and Tokyo is constantly hustling and bustling, I felt like Nara had a nice relaxing rhythm with all the amenities, and a rich history that is apparent in all that is crafted there – including sake. A visit to Nara would not be complete without runnin ..read more

After my visit to Nishiyoshida Shuzo in Chikugo, Fukuoka back in January, I had the distinct pleasure to tour Ikekame Shuzo in nearby Kurume. We first featured Ikekame Shuzo in February 2021 for Sake Gumi's theme Experimentations in Koji  – Ikekame had brewed a sake made with black koji, high in acidity with a tropical fruit nose. I knew I would be featuring Ikekame Shuzo for both Sake Gumi and Shochu Gumi so I wanted to see the brewery for myself. Hugging the Chikugo River, Ikekame is a boutique brewery in spirit that occupies a huge space from when they we ..read more