Earlier this month, a group of 18 international volunteers participating in a cultural exchange program got a crash course in sake production at breweries in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures. The program, organized by Britain-based student organizations Action for Japan UK and the Japan Affairs Forum, ran Sept 11-25 and included tours of five breweries, as well as some hands-on sake-making experience.
For the first four days of the program, participants worked alongside brewery staff members and Japanese volunteers to wash, shovel and steam rice at Nizawa Shuzo, the maker of Hakurakusei sake, in the village of Sanbongi, Osaki City, Miyagi Prefecture.
"We did everything from A to Z — big jobs like making the kōji (the enzymatic catalyst that facilitates the breakdown of starches into sugar) and grunt work like cleaning plums from the bottom of a vat of umeshu (plum liqueur)," said sake educator and blogger Timothy Sullivan, who traveled from New York City to join the group. "It was exhausting, but the people at the brewery were incredibly kind."