Japan’s Okaya At her family’s 150-year-old sake brewery, Koten, which is tucked away in the foothills of the Japanese Alps, Mie Takahashi, a Japanese sake brewer, checks the temperature of the mixture fermenting shortly after daybreak.
She uses a long paddle to thoroughly mix the more than 3,000 liters of bubbling soup made of steamed rice, water, and a rice mold called koji while standing on an uneven, narrow wooden platform above the tank.
According to 43-year-old Takahashi, the morning hours are essential for brewing sake. Her brewery is located in the sake-producing prefecture of Nagano.
One of the few female toji, or master sake brewers, is Takahashi. Out of over a thousand breweries across the country, only 33 female toji are registered with the Toji Guild Association in Japan.
That was over a few decades ago. Sake production was mostly closed to women until the end of World War II.
Sake making has over a thousand years of history and is deeply rooted in traditional Shintoism in Japan.
However, during the Edo period (1603–1868), when the booze started to be mass manufactured, an unwritten law prohibited women from working in breweries.
The Koten sake brewery’s shop in Okaya, central Japan.AP
The ban’s justifications are still unknown. According to Yasuyuki Kishi, vice director of the Sakeology Center at Niigata University, one notion is that women were barred from sacred locations because they were deemed filthy due to menstruation.
Another possibility, he said, is that perilous duties and a lot of heavy labor were involved in the bulk production of sake. Thus, the position was viewed as unsuitable for women.
But the gradual breakdown of gender barriers, coupled with a shrinking workforce caused by Japan s fast-aging population, has created space for more women to work in sake production.
The sector is still mostly controlled by men. However, regardless of a person’s gender, I believe that people today concentrate on whether they have the passion to accomplish it, Takahashi added.
She thinks that the brewery’s mechanization is also contributing to the reduction of the gender gap. At Koten, a crane lifts hundreds of pounds of steamed rice in batches and places it onto a cooling conveyor, after which the rice is sucked through a hose and transported to a separate room dedicated to cultivating koji.
According to Takahashi, all of this would have been completed by hand in the past. Women may now perform additional duties thanks to machines.
Steamed rice is fermented with koji mold, which turns starch into sugar, to make sake, also known as nihonshu. Earlier this month, UNESCO acknowledged the traditional brewing method as part of its Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Takahashi was forbidden entry to her family’s brewery when she was a child. But when she turned 15, she was given a tour of the brewery for the first time and was captivated by the fermentation process.
I saw it bubbling up. It was fascinating to learn that those bubbles were the work of microorganisms that you can t even see, said Takahashi, who couldn t drink alcohol at the time because she was underage. It smelled really good. I thought it was amazing that this wonderful fragrant sake could be made from just rice and water. So I thought I d like to try making it myself.
She pursued a degree in fermentation science at the Tokyo University of Agriculture. After graduation, she decided to return home to become a master brewer. She trained for 10 years under the guidance of her predecessor, and at the age of 34 became a toji at her family brewery.
Sake brewer Mie Takahashi prepares steamed rice with koji mold for sake making in a temperature-controlled room at her Koten sake brewery in Okaya, central Japan.AP
As the brewery enters the winter peak season, Takahashi oversees a team of seasonal workers and production ramps up. It s labor-intensive work, hauling and turning large amounts of heavy steamed rice, and mixing hundreds of gallons of brew. The master brewer must have the knowledge and skill to carefully control optimal koji mold growth, which needs round-the-clock monitoring.
Despite the intensity, Takahashi manages to encourage camaraderie in the brewery, catching up with the team as they hand-mix koji rice side by side in a hot humid room.
I was taught that the most important thing is to get along with your team, Takahashi said. A common saying is that if the atmosphere in the brewery is tense, the sake will turn out harsh, but if things are going well in the brewery, the sake will turn out smooth.
Sake brewer Mie Takahashi stirs mixture of steamed rice with koji mold and water in a tank at her Koten sake brewery in Okaya, central Japan.AP
The inclusion of women plays an important role in the survival of the Japanese sake industry, which has seen a steady decline since its peak in the 1970s.
Domestic alcoholic consumption has dropped, while many smaller breweries struggle to find new master brewers. According to the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association, today s total production volume is about a quarter of what it was 50 years ago.
To remain competitive, Koten is among many Japanese breweries trying to find a wider market both domestically and abroad.
Our main product has always been dry sake, which local people continue to drink regularly, said Takahashi s older brother, Isao Takahashi, who is in charge of the business side of the family operation. We re now exploring making higher value sake as well.
He supports his sister s experiments – every year she creates a limited-edition series, Mie Special, that s meant to branch out from their signature dry product.
My sister would say she wants to try to make low alcohol content, or she wants to try new yeasts – all kinds of new techniques are coming in through her, he said. I want my sister to make the sake she wants, and I want to do my best to sell it.
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