Miho Imada Master Brewer

by Jane Johnston

When I meet Miho Imada at her brewery it’s late November 2023 on a cool, blue-sky autumn day. She is energetic and welcoming, happy to have just bottled one of the first sakes of her annual brewing season – a fresh nama, an unpasteurised sake more properly known as namazake.

Over the next months of continuous work until June 2024, Miho will create the rest of her products for this brewing season. They total almost ten distinct sakes for the Fukuchō brand produced by the Imada Sake Brewing Co., Ltd. in the town of Akitsu in the Hiroshima Prefecture, by the Seto Inland Sea.

Women rarely become tōji in Japan. Miho says that there are around 30-40 female tōji and around 1200 breweries in Japan. Miho found her vocation in this industry, saying to the BBC, ‘If you can find a job worthy of your life’s devotion, immerse yourself in it.’

In our conversation, Miho says, ‘During winter, when we start producing sake, it is like you jump into the swimming pool and when the sake brewing is done, I can get out of the pool. In the pool, I take a rest occasionally, of course, but I stay inside the pool.’ Once the annual brewing season starts, Miho is committed to daily work to direct and participate in the brewing with her team and her live ingredients – kobo (yeast) and kōji (mould).

Miho is constantly refining the sakes while keeping a strong continuity in the Fukuchō range over time. ‘We don’t try to do something different every year,’ she says. ‘But what we have right now could be modified a little next year, say with a little more aroma, with more smoothness. Every new year we are thinking about that.’

It’s an approach typical of the industry. ‘One of the characteristics of the Japanese sake brewing approach, is not to change the taste so dramatically every year,’ says Miho. Indeed, when Miho varies aspects of ingredients or process, sometimes she aims not for change, but for continuity in response to factors beyond her control.

For example, if the rice turns out to be less suited to brewing in some years, for climatic reasons, Miho can ‘make recoveries’ by using the kōji in particular ways. Miho says, ‘We cannot 100% control every factor, and are affected by this and that, but through this, we try to make the products without much change in the flavours. It's one aspect that I really enjoy.’

Geographical location has a major influence on sake brewing. Miho highlights the broad range of topography and, accordingly, climate in the Hiroshima Prefecture and says, ‘Topography affects the taste of the sake. For example, we can call sake mountain sake, or sea sake.’

Being in Akitsu is also influential in that it inspires some of her sakes. Miho says, ‘Akitsu oysters are famous for their delicious taste. So about 10 years ago, I created a sake that goes well with these oysters. That is Fukucho Seafood Junmai.’

As well as create sakes that pair with the foods harvested and eaten locally, Miho always makes some sake of the kind that locals enjoy drinking. She emphasises how important sake is to the people of Akitsu – the birthplace of ginjo sake – and how the people have supported sake brewing over so many years, as drinkers and makers, including tōji. ‘In this Akitsu town, there have lived so many tōji , many of them born in Akitsu.’

Akitsu’s traditional sake tastes ‘soft’, ‘gentle’ and ‘mild’, in Miho’s words – highly reflective of the taste of the ‘soft’ water it’s brewed with. ‘I like to respect tastes for sake, refined over time,’ says Miho. ‘It is, in my opinion, the way to resonate deeply with many people, more than if I made sake only according to my personal preferences.’

Miho also keeps up with the tastes of her customers elsewhere. ‘I dine out at restaurants, observing what kinds of sake people prefer to drink now. People who buy our products also give us feedback, and then I think of my own vision. But I cannot imagine everything by myself.’

By great fortune, Miho ended up with a literal handful of its grains from a prefectural seed bank, and they began planting it in 2001. It took six years of successive replanting by farmers to get enough grains for a full-scale brew, and until 2014 to gain an acceptable flavour brew. Their perseverance was well worthwhile and publicly clear by 2017 – the year their Fukuchō Hattanso Junmai Ginjo won platinum (top ten) in the Junmai category at the prestigious Kura Masters awards in France. 

Miho believes in its benefits for the flavours of her sake, and in the value of reviving an ancient rice type and of growing rice locally, if not immediately close by. ‘It takes two hours by car to get to those farmers. We had to look so far from here, as rice cultivation is not recommended by the sea.’

Hattansō currently makes up less than half the rice used by the shuzō. ‘You cannot yield a lot from each plant, so the growing price is costly. If we used 100% hattanso, all our sake would be extremely expensive!’

They also use Yamada Nishiki – the rice most commonly used for sake brewing in Japan. When Miho joined the shuzō, they only used Yamada Nishiki and only from Hyogo, a nearby prefecture famed for this rice. Miho developed business relationships with local farmers, and now around 98% of their rice comes from the Hiroshima Prefecture, meaning that their Fukuchō brand strongly expresses Hiroshima terroir. Even their kobo is locally sourced.

Thanks to the internet, Miho appeals directly to new and existing distributors in Japan and overseas. That’s greatly helpful since the portion of the Japanese population who drink sake is smaller than it’s ever been while sake exports are rising. Miho is building on an export history that her father began in the 1990s, first in Hong Kong and the USA, as a member-brewer of the then-new SEA, Sake Export Association.

Miho says, ‘But everyone is working like that, right? I think, not only brewing work is like this?’ When my reaction shows that she sits at a remarkably high point on the dedication scale, she laughs. ‘And there is a lot of enjoyment. I am having a lot of fun because I can always discover something new.’ From the way she says it, I have absolutely no doubt.