Sake can be called rice wine and the process is similar to that of wine. Sake is made by fermenting rice like wine is made of grapes. In terms of brewing process, the major difference between wine and sake is glucose; grapes contain glucose whereas rice does not. During wine brewery process, grapes are fermented by yeast and ethanol is made during the process. Sake requires one more step to convert starch into glucose. For this process, koji mold*, or aspergillus oryzae, plays a very important role. Koji mold creates various enzymes which convert starch into glucose and these enzymes define the taste of sake. Technically it is very delicate process, therefore, usually sake breweries do not open this process to

Daiginjo is the most expensive sake as it uses only core part of rice; more than half of the rice should be polished to make daiginjo. But there are two types of daiginjo which are junmai-daiginjo and plain daiginjo. As we learned the difference between junmai-shu and jozo-shu, now you can guess junmai-daiginjo should not contain added alcohol. Plain daiginjo is made of water, highly polished rice and added alcohol and is a part of jozo-shu.

Then quality of plain daiginjo is lower? Not necessarily. As mentioned, alcohol is added to adjust the flavor or taste, and whether to add it or not depends on regional preferences. Taste of sake is tightly related with local culture and cuisine and some

If you are a sake lover, you may have heard that junmai-shu is better sake than jozo-shu. Is it correct? Not necessarily. Now let’ learn about some basics of sake. I checked several English information on junmai-shu and jozo-shu, but I think non of them explains the difference very well.

First of all, sake can be categorized into two big groups; junmai-shu and jozo-shu. (Honjozo is one type of jozo-shu.) Junmai-shu is made only from water and rice, and the alcohol is naturally brewed during the process whereas in jozo-shu, alcohol is added at the end of the making process to the flavor. According to a sake maker, it is true that it requires more technics to create good flavor without adding

If you already know the basics about sake, you should know the categories such as daiginjo, ginjo, and junmai-shu. It is well known that daiginjo is the most expensive one. Why? Because the category mentioned above is defined by the percentage of rice polishing, and more than 50% of the rice surface should be polished to make daiginjo. The surface of the rice is polished in order to remove smell of the rice skin. (A piece of rice is approximately 5mm high and 2mm wide; imagine how delicate process it is.)

Daiginjo and ginjo, both composed with a term “ginjo”(吟醸), have fruitful flavor and it is suitable for beginners or white wine lovers. Daiginjo is the sake that only uses more