How I Came to Love Sake

Hello!

I'm Yuka, the lady drinker.

Thank you for reading today too.

Actually, I only came to love sake in my mid-thirties,

and until then I'd always been a wine person and couldn't drink sake. (Actually, I was bad with sake...)

What made someone like me love sake was a book I came across in 2010.

It was "Mastering Junmai Sake" by Hiroshi Uehara.

He's apparently well known in the sake world and even appears in the manga "Natsuko's Sake."

At the time I was posted in Singapore, enjoying beer in an ever-summer country,

but after being moved by this book, I bought some sake there and a hot-sake set,

and faithfully tasted it, as Uehara-sensei recommended: "Sake is best as junmai, and better still when warmed"...

I was amazed that sake could be so delicious, and I became a sake lover all at once.

Right around then, Yamaguchi Prefecture's Dassai became available in Singapore,

at a time when aromatic sake that's delicious in a wine glass was emerging.

Since I originally loved wine, as this new kind of sake deliciousness spread,

my love of sake grew too.

What moved me most about "Mastering Junmai Sake" was the policy and spirit,

in an era when even table rice was scarce, of advancing sake making through a unified public-private effort.

It was an era when elites who truly cared for the nation really existed.

Since then, meeting sake-loving liquor shops, kuramoto (蔵元),

and Ayako-chan, who spreads sake as culture,

I've come to feel ever more proud of Japan!

(This is a scene from "Shuzo Monogatari" @ Hilton Genji before the pandemic)

I hope that, in this way, I can help convey sake and Japanese culture even a little.

Thank you for staying with me to the end today (*^^*)