9,915 miles away.: Hakutsuru Sake Brewing Co.

Sunday, I went to Hakutsuru Sake Brewery in Nada, Kobe. I went with Meiko, who is a student of mine and a pediatric nurse, Keiko who is Meiko's friend from Osaka, and Tim.

Entrance to the brewery. The thing hanging from the ceiling is supposed to bring good luck to the brewers.

Outside the brewery entrance, there is a water spout, and it fills up a hollow bamboo pole, and tips over and pours the water out. The whole point of it though is to make the noise at the end of the video, to scare off deer who might try to eat some of the rice in the fields. Genius.

Meiko reading some information. Those are mannequins, but they look super realistic! This part of the process is called senmai (rice washing). To quote the brochure, "Refined rice is placed in a washing tub. Two young men in short sleeves, short pants and headbands stand in the wash tub barefooted and tread on the rice, accompanied by a lively chant. The water is then drained away and the treading takes place again. This process is repeated many times.".

After the rice washing is mushimai (steaming). "Washed rice is then transferred to a steamer that is placed on a cauldron. Openings in the bottom of the steamer let in steam from the boiling cauldron, and as the steam rises it is carefully watched by the stokers.".

This scene depicts the hourei (cooling) stage of sake brewing. "The steamed rice is then divided depending on various usages such as for mash or molding, and spread out to cool. Following tradition, the stoker spreads the steamed rice on a straw mat. He then draws a line, then two and then three strokes to assure even cooling."

Koji (Mold culturing for the steamed rice). "Koji (molding rice) is cultured in a special highly humid chamber. It is stirred twice at two or three hour intervals to make sure the spores of mold grow evenly.".

Moto (seed mash). The koji and steamed rice are precisely measured and placed in shallow boxes. Water is carefully poured in using a special tap called a Dragon's Mouth (Tatsunokuchi) and stirred with a paddle-like stirrer.".

Moromi (main mash). "A new mixture of steamed rice, water and koji is added to the seed mash in three stages. The fermented mash is then returned to tanks and then to smaller containers.".

Tim and a wall of sake barrels.

Meiko san and I in front of the wall of sake barrels.

Me and an empty giant bottle of sake.

Really old advertisement. Meiko said it was so old, it was read right to left. Japanese used to be read right to left, top to bottom, but after WWII it switched to a horizontal style read left to right.

A collection of past labels.

Sampling the fresh sake! Kanpai!

I promise there was a sign that said "Let's pose for pictures!" so this was not only allowed, but encouraged.

After the museum/brewery, it was maybe 3:00. We headed back into Sannomiya, and went to Junkara (one of the big karaoke chains) and tried to have our own episode of American Idol for two hours. Meiko and I are singing a Coldplay song.

Remember when I said Tim was cracking me up when we sang The Fugees song "Killing Me Softly"? This was what I saw when I searched for it again. Awesome.