Washoku, the traditional Japanese food culture, was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013. Japan, which stretches from north to south and has four distinct seasons, is blessed with a rich natural environment, and the food culture that was born there has also been nurtured in harmony with this. Like washoku, sake, one of Japan's proud culinary traditions, is a gift from nature itself. We visited a long-established sake brewery at the height of its new sake brewing season to see how sake is brewed in harmony with the local climate and seasonal natural features.

■ Junmai brewing, 100-year-old water, and in-house brewers: the three key elements of Fukumitsuya's sake brewing

Fukumitsuya, a sake brewery in Kanazawa, is known even beyond sake fans, with directly managed stores in Tokyo Midtown in Roppongi and department stores in Tokyo. Founded in 1625, Fukumitsuya produces everything from sake to cosmetics and food products that utilize rice fermentation techniques. The company offers 10 brands of sake, including "Kuroobi," named by author Kenichi Yoshida, author of "Kanazawa," the vibrant and dynamic "Kaga Tobi," the highly popular "Fukumasamune," and the long-aged "Momotose." Fukumitsuya, which produces a wide variety of sake, converted all of its sake to junmai brewing in 2001. While the number of junmai breweries is increasing, this was the first attempt in Japan at a brewery with a production volume of tens of thousands of koku, drawing considerable attention both within and outside the industry. "Sake is born from the natural blessings of rice and water, combined with the power of microorganisms. Sake breweries exist as places that respect nature and receive the wisdom and ingenuity to harness its power. Becoming a junmai brewery is a return to nature, and was the inevitable choice," says Fukumitsu Matsutaro, 13th-generation head of Fukumitsuya. Behind this junmai brewing is a contract farming arrangement in which the brewers have worked together with farmers since 1960, starting with soil preparation. These face-to-face relationships have enabled Fukumitsuya to steadily secure a supply of high-quality rice suitable for sake brewing.

In addition to their carefully selected sake rice, the brewery is also proud of the high-quality brewing water that flows abundantly through the brewery. The water, named "Hyakunen-sui" (100-year-old water), is made by rainfall from a century ago filtering through layers of shells, dissolving the essential ingredients for sake brewing. "We produce more varieties of sake than in the past, and sometimes wish we could expand even further, but because of Hyakunen-sui, we can't leave the place where we've been since our founding," says Kazutoshi Masaji, general manager of the Production Division.

In response to the issue of finding successors, Fukumitsuya introduced an "employee brewer system" in the 1990s to train employees to become brewers. Today, 15 employee brewers brew 20 to 30 varieties of undiluted sake. Veteran brewers pass on their traditional techniques and intuition gained from their experience, passing on the tradition of sake brewing. Furthermore, everything that can be quantified is converted into data to back up their intuition. They take on the challenge of sake brewing by striking a good balance between intuition, experience, and data-based systemization. "In the past, once the master brewer decided on a particular flavor, that was the taste of the sake. Of course, many delicious sakes were produced. But the advantage of having staff brewers is that they can brew sake that reflects the needs of the times and the market. In particular, since we have our own directly managed stores, we can hear directly from our customers," says Masaji.

Continued in the second part.