SLURPING HISTORY
What better way to start this blog thing than with a review of a Sake that ticked many boxes for me.
Living in Hong Kong, we are blessed with multiple retail locations to keep our Sake stash well stocked. For the most part though, many selections are very Ginjo dominated and I find myself more often than not facing a wall of labels emblazoned with 60% and 50% (or less, with a price ticket to match!). Plenty of 吟醸 to choose from with the odd 大 thrown in here and there.
And this doesn’t surprise me. I learned way back from a now well-thumbed Sake course textbook that Hong Kong is the No. 2 by value importer and actively seeks out the super-premium category. This is more recently backed up by trading intelligence site Tridge that shows the (ballpark) value per 1,000 tons of Sake imported by Hong Kong is valued at just under US$5m, whereas USA is US$2.6m, mainland China US$3.2m and UK just over US$1m. We Hongkongers like to show off.
So in a market where 吟醸 is the head of the household, it’s always a small treat to find a more rebellious Honjozo or quirky Junmai sibling tucked away, or, better still, an eccentric uncle Kimoto and auntie Yamahai.
You can imagine my excitement then when I was presented with a glass of Terada Honke’s Katori 90 at dinner whilst exploring Tasmania (just as Covid-19 was starting to emerge around the world).
Katori 90 is an immersive trip back in time to indulge in a taste of Sake as it used to be, made credible by Terada Honke’s history and knowledge dating back to 1673. This is no clumsy experiment or marketing gimmick and it will come as no surprise that Kōzaki (the brewery’s location in northern Chiba Prefecture) is enjoying growing popularity as the “Home of Fermentation” or “Town of Brewage”.
If I carry on with the same analogy, Katori 90 is perhaps the black sheep of the modern day premium Sake family, with production attributes including:
Koshi-Hikari table rice, more often reserved for sushi (it’s organic too)
Kimoto – traditional, hard labor yeast starter method
Muroka – what you see is what you get, no charcoal filtration
Junmai Nama Genshu – no messing about with adding either alcohol or water; and let’s leave it as nature intended…unpasteurised
The brewery specialises in Kimoto (and some Bodaimoto), and with over 340 years of experience, if any place can make something consistently good from what is, let’s face it, a notoriously inconsistent method, then surely this is the place.
For Katori 90, the yeasts and bacteria are the defining elements. In fact I read somewhere that the microorganisms harboured on any tour guests are actively welcomed into the brewery to be added to the billions already strewn around the facility. But why make life so difficult, and continue with only Kimoto?
Well, it’s based on the old Japanese saying that “Sake is healthier than a hundred medicines” (Hyakuyaku no Cho). The decision to go back to basics came at a time when a previous owner fell sick. Under his guidance, the process was less natural and he also identified a lull in passion amongst his brigade of Kurabito. These circumstances triggered the decision to change the direction of the brewery.
So how was it?
Well, this slap across the face came during a tasting menu at Hobart’s amazing Dier Makr restaurant where it was paired with a dish written up on the blackboard menu as ALBACORE, KOHLRABI, BASIL.
https://www.instagram.com/diermakr/
Given that the rice grains are still loaded with the fats and proteins that are normally lost in the Nuka, I was quaffing a rich and robust, ‘man Sake’. Rice dominated the aroma in the glass (Dier Makr’s supplier, Black Market Sake, suggest you think of it as ‘liquid rice’) and, naturally, the acidity was high and savory notes punctuated each sip. It’s powerful all the way through, honest and proud of its ancient credentials.
The dish itself was cured albacore tuna, salted kohlrabi ribbons, smoked mayo and pickled purple basil. From lockdown in Tasmania, the Dier Makr team kindly took the time to tell me:
“There were a few challenges in finding something to pair with this particular dish. The smoked mayo brings such a lush, unctuous mouthfeel and similarly so, the fatty nature of the albacore tuna. We found that most wines we tried were just too jarring with acid.
The benefit of the Katori 90 is that it brings a rounded mouthfeel without feeling weighty or rich but also weaves in those lovely bright, mineral notes we were trying to seek out in a wine. Sakes also have such a wonderful proclivity of being best friends with umami flavours, especially smoke, so this really sealed the deal for us.”
Overall, this choice was the highlight of Dier Makr’s drinks pairing. Sitting in the restaurant, just a couple of hours drive from some of Tasmania’s finest wineries, it proved a welcome distraction from the previous week’s gluttonous pinot noir intake.
As you’ll read in future posts (I hope), the experience around Sake forms an important part of my appreciation of this wonderful drink. In this instance, it was as much the surprise as it was the intensity of the chosen Sake that made this a memorable occasion.
In short, Seimaibuai is a great indicator of quality, as is price, but they are far from the only factors to take into consideration when exploring the world of Sake.
I’ll leave the last words to the brewery to round off this article, after such a long period of production know how, they can put it into words far better than I can:
“Our Sake is made following the law of nature, borrowing the help of the natural microorganisms inhabiting the air within the old walls of the brewery.”
QUICK GLOSSARY:
Seimaibuai: The percentage of rice remaining after the polishing process compared to its original weight (so a 60% Seimaibuai reflects that 40% has been polished away)
吟醸: Ginjo…Sake made from rice at a polishing ratio below 60%
大: as in 大吟醸 Daiginjo…Sake made from rice at a polishing ratio below 50%
Kurabito: Literally ‘brewery rat’, a Sake brewery worker
Nuka: The powdered rice residue created during polishing
LINKS:
Teradahonke Co.,Ltd.
〒289-0221 Chiba-ken Katori-gun Kozaki-machi Kozakihonjuku 1964
www.teradahonke.co.jp
@teradahonke
info@teradahonke.co.jp
Dier Makr
123 Collins Street, Hobart, Tasmania 7000
www.diermakr.com
@diermakr
diermakr.hobart@gmail.com
Black Market Sake
www.blackmarketsake.com
@blackmarketsake
info@blackmarketsake.com
