Japanese Sake

Nihon-shu which means Japanese sake is a famous and Japanese national liquor.
This is made from rice grains.

Nihon-shu has been made for over 1000 years all over Japan.
Rice farming was introduced from china to Japan about fifteen thousand years ago. As rice farming has been developed, people began to make Japanese sake.
There are so many nihon-shu which are made by using locally grown rice and water from local sources and they are called “jizake”.
Nihon-shu has many flavors such as dry, fluity, sweet and fresh.

There are some unique ingredients of sake for example Yeast and Koji.
Yeast is important and can make flavor difference of nihon-shu. Yeast is a microbe which convert sugar into alcohol. People choose appropriate yeast which depends on kind of nihon-shu.
Koji is also one of the crucial ingredients in brewing sake and this is made from steamed rice that has had aspergillus oryzae. Aspergillus oryzae convert the starches in rice into sugars which can be fermented by yeast cells and release alcohol.

There are many kinds of Japanese sakes such as “Junmai-shu”, “Honjozo-shu” and “Ginjo-shu”. They have each different processes and different levels of rice polish which is called seimaibuai. There is a wide variety of the taste of Nihon-shu depends on seimaibuai.
Ginjo-shu is made from highly polished rice and has fruity flavor.
Honjozo-shu is made from rice and rice koji and has fresh taste. Many people drink Honjozo-shu because it is easy to drink.
Junmaisyu is also made from rice and rice koji, generally it has rich taste and flavor.

Japanese people love to drink Nihon-shu in many traditional seasonal events.
For example, Hanami; cherry blossom viewing in spring and Tsukimi; full moon viewing in autumn. And they also use Nihon-shu for cooking. This can get rid of seafood’s smells and add nice fragrance to the food.
In these days many Nihon-shu festivals were held around Japan. People can drink many kinds of nihon-shu which are brought together from all over Japan and a lot of people visit there.
So Nihon-shu has become an essential thing in our lives.

Recently nihon-shu become popular in all over the world and a lot of nihon-shu have been exported. It has been increasing the volume of Nihon-shu exports since 1970s. One the reasons for this is that Nihon-shu go well with any dish such as French. In addition, Some online shops are opened for people in other countries.
I hope more and more people in other country drink nihon-shu.

cf.
http://www.nrib.go.jp/sake/sake_leaflet.htm
http://kurand.jp/blog/2014/03/04/sake-seimaibuai/
http://www.osaketo.jp/blog/sake-type/