toji– tag –

Kan-zukuri is the traditional practice of brewing sake during the coldest months of the year. The cold does real work here. Low temperatures slow fermentation, keep it stable, and hold unwanted microbes in check. For centuries, this made...

A great sake begins long before the rice is even washed. Instead, it begins with the building itself, the kura. So what is a kura? A kura, or sakagura, is a traditional Japanese sake brewery. It is the place where every stage of brewing ...

A kurabito is a sake brewery worker, one of the skilled hands who brews sake under the toji, or master brewer. Sake is never the work of one person alone, and behind every bottle stands a whole team of kurabito who wash the rice, tend th...

Behind every great bottle of sake stands one guiding figure: the toji. So what is a toji? A toji is the master brewer who leads all of sake production. Indeed, this person oversees everything, from choosing the rice to judging the taste....