Chitosetsuru sake’s factory is located at the center of Sapporo, on the Toyohira riverside. Sake has been brewed at the heart of the 1.8 million inhabitant city, using the same water, since the factory was established at the turning of the 19th century. The factory is called Tanchozo. I visited it on a cold morning, when the highest quality sake is brewed. As soon as I set foot in the building, I could smell the scent of fermented rice.　

　10 a.m. The inside of the factory is warm thanks to the vapor of steamed rice. According to the orders of master sake brewer Kazuyuki Sato, steamed rice is dispatched into wooden buckets, carried on the shoulders of workers who were standing by and is carried rapidly to the koji’s room (koji is the name of the fungus used for the fermentation of the rice). They all run fast so that the rice temperature does not come down.

　I can hear the master’s orders, the voices and the breathing of the running workers. Nobody makes a single useless movement.

　Even if the factory is getting mechanized, as for the brewing of the greatest sake, a lot of manipulations are entrusted to human’s hands. The tools too are specific. Like the bamboo baskets used to wash rice, the wooden buckets in which steamed rice is carried, the Japanese cedar boxes in which kojis are bred, etc. lots of devices are made from natural components. Kojis are spread and cultivated on the steamed rice in koji’s room.

　When its fermentation is achieved, the rice is mixed with water in a tank, becoming what is called shubo or moto : now begins the development of yeasts.

.　Day after day, adding step by step fungus, water and steamed rice to the shubo, the brewers make the moromi. When fermentation begins, you can smell a good perfume floating in the factory. This is the scent of sake lees, of what we can certainly call the best refined substance.

　Three workers stand on the edge of the tank and stir the moromi with a long wooden stick called kaibo. The rhythm followed by these three seems important. Accompanied by their voices, the sticks draw perfect circles.

　Once the tumult of the men carrying the rice and the stirring of the moromi is finished, the factory becomes quiet. The temperature inside is 8 degrees. I will get cold if I do not move.

　In this coldness, the moromi , still fermenting, will wait during one month for the day it will become sake.

（February 2005, trld May 2008）

　Sake is at 5 min walking distance from subway Bus Center Mae Station (Tozai Line), in Minami 3 jo, Higashi 5 chome (Chuo-ku). You will find here the Chitosetsuru Sake Museum, where you can try and buy sake. Open from 10:00 to 18:00, closed on year-end and New Year holidays. TEL 011-221-7570

Besides Chitosetsuru Sake Museum, you can buy sake in those places :
　Mitsukoshi Sapporo, Marui Imai Sapporo, Sapporo Tokyu Hyakka, Sapporo Seibu, Nordis (New Chitose Airport 2Ｆ Departure lobby)

■ Official web site
Chitosetsuru

■ Affiliated articles
Delicious sake thanks to the snow