2 December 2024 · Mazda Muse
Hiroshima Sake Triumph From Innovation
by Jane Johnston
There’s a remarkable story of innovation behind the success of sake in MAZDA’s home prefecture of Hiroshima, and now is a great time to hear about it. Late in 2024, UNESCO will respond to Japan’s application for the ‘traditional knowledge and skills of sake making’ to become part of world intangible cultural heritage – ‘traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants’, in UNESCO’s words.
The Hiroshima Prefecture is renowned as one of Japan’s top three locations for sake brewing, alongside Nada in Kobe and Fushimi in Kyoto, but that wasn’t always so. Far from it – Hiroshima sakes had a poor reputation until 1907 when, astonishingly, they won first and second prizes in the first-ever Japan-wide sake competition by an institute of brewing in Tokyo.
Who was at the forefront of this transformation? The enquiring, persevering, and inventive Senzaburo Miura (1847–1908).
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Senzaburo was from Akitsu by the Seto Inland Sea, an important port town for rice and other commodities. Like several others in Akitsu and elsewhere in Japan, Senzaburo started a shuzō (brewery) in the mid-nineteenth century, early in the Meiji era, when rules on who could brew sake were relaxed.
However, the results were disappointing and the mash frequently spoiled at his shuzō and others in the Hiroshima area. His efforts to know why included leaving Akitsu to become a brewery worker in Nada, already famous for sake. Back in Akitsu, he recognised the ‘problem’ – the Hiroshima area’s ‘soft’ (low mineral) water. The dissolved minerals that are typically present in water nourish the kōji (mould) used in sake brewing, so ‘normal’ brewing methods with soft water result in inadequate fermentation.
After extensive trial and error experimentation, Senzaburo invented the solution – ginjo brewing, the most crucial aspects of which are to culture the kōji well before use and to ferment with it slowly, at low temperature. The results for sake flavours are so valued that ginjo brewing methods are used today in the Hiroshima Prefecture and elsewhere, sometimes even where water isn’t soft.
Senzaburo devised his new method in 1897 and his 1898 book detailing it was distributed to tōji (master brewers) throughout the Hiroshima Prefecture. This book and training for tōji in his new method, including by a brewers guild that he established in Akitsu, were behind the strong and widespread uplift in sake brewing success across Hiroshima around the turn of the twentieth century.
The relatively small town of Akitsu once had almost twenty shuzō. Today, there are two, one being the Imada shuzō directed by the famed tōji, Miho Imada. This small family brewery was established by her great-grandfather in 1868, and its brand name of Fukuchō or ‘forever fortune’ was bestowed by Senzaburo.
There are around 40 shuzō in the Hiroshima Prefecture and Saijo is a popular destination for sake lovers. Here, several shuzō are close to the train station and each other and are open for visits. The largest, Kamotsuru, has a tasting room, shop and displays that give insight into the sake brewing processes.
Kamotsuru’s founder, Shizuhiko Kimura, established a brewing school and a testing laboratory in Saijo. He was one of several people who notably furthered the work of Senzaburo, helping to make ginjo brewing and the Hiroshima sake industry renowned.
But Senzaburo deserves special honour for being at the forefront of developments that transformed a problem into grounds for great success. There’s a bronze statue of him at the Sakakiyama Hachiman Shrine – the main Shinto shrine of Akitsu which is, in fact, a complex of shrines for multiple deities with one for the sake gods.
But being with him ‘in person’ at the shrine is not essential to recognising his work. Wherever you are, when you next drink a Hiroshima sake, say Kampai! in thanks to Senzaburo Miura.
