Once taboo, more Japanese women are brewing sake

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Okaya, Japan (AP) — Shortly after dawn, Japanese sake maker Mei Takahashi checks the temperature of the fermenting mixture at her family’s 150-year-old sake brewery, nestled in the foothills of the Japanese Alps.

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She stands on a narrow, uneven wooden platform above a huge tank containing more than 3,000 liters (800 gallons) of a boiling soup of steamed rice, water and rice mold known as koji, and gives it a good mix with a long paddle.

“The morning hours are crucial for making sake,” said 43-year-old Takahashi. Its brewery is located in Nagano Prefecture, an area known for its sake industry.

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Takahashi is one of a small group of female toji, or master sake makers. Only 33 female toji are registered with the Japan Toji Guild Association out of more than a thousand breweries across the country.

This was more than several decades ago. Women were largely excluded from sake production until after World War II.

Sake making dates back more than a thousand years, with strong roots in Japan’s traditional Shinto religion.

But when large-scale production of alcoholic beverages began during the Edo period, from 1603 to 1868, an unspoken rule prohibited women from entering breweries.

The reasons for the ban remain mysterious. One theory is that women are considered impure due to their menstrual cycle, and are therefore excluded from holy places, said Yasuyuki Kishi, deputy director of the Center for Psychology at Niigata University.

“Another theory is that when sake became mass-produced, it required a lot of hard work and dangerous tasks,” he said. “So the job was seen as unsuitable for women.”

But the gradual collapse of gender barriers, combined with a shrinking workforce due to Japan’s rapidly aging population, has created space for more women to work in sake production.

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“It’s still a predominantly male-dominated industry. But I think people are now focusing on whether someone has the passion to do it, regardless of gender.”

She believes mechanization in the brewery also helps narrow the gender gap. In Koten, a crane lifts hundreds of kilograms of steamed rice in batches and places them on a cooling conveyor, after which the rice is sucked through a hose and transported to a separate room designated for growing koji.

“In the past, this was all done by hand,” Takahashi said. “With the help of machines, women can access more tasks.”

Sake, or nihonshu, is made by fermenting steamed rice with a koji mold, which converts the starch into sugar. The ancient brewing technique was recognized as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage earlier this month.

As a child, Takahashi was not allowed to enter her family-owned brewery. But when she was 15, she toured a brewery for the first time and was amazed by the brewing process.

“I saw it boiling. It was amazing to know that those bubbles were made by microorganisms that you can’t even see,” said Takahashi, who couldn’t drink alcohol at the time because she was underage. “It smelled really good.” . I thought it was amazing that such wonderfully aromatic sake could be made with just rice and water. So I thought I’d like to try making it myself.

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I earned a degree in Fermentation Science at Tokyo University of Agriculture. After graduating, she decided to return home to become a master brewer. She trained for 10 years under her predecessor, and at the age of 34 became a toji at her family’s brewery.

As the brewery enters the winter peak season, Takahashi oversees a team of seasonal workers and ramps up production. It’s a labor-intensive job, transporting and turning large quantities of heavy, steamed rice, and mixing thousands of liters (hundreds of gallons) of brew. The master brewer must have the knowledge and skill to carefully control optimal growth of koji mold, which needs round-the-clock monitoring.

Despite the intensity of the work, Takahashi was able to encourage camaraderie in the brewery, catching the team as they hand-mixed koji rice side-by-side in a hot, humid room.

“I learned that the most important thing is chemistry with your team,” Takahashi said. “There’s a common saying that if the atmosphere in a brewery is tense, the sake will be tough, but if all goes well in the brewery, the sake will be smooth.”

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The involvement of women plays an important role in the survival of Japan’s sake industry, which has seen a steady decline since its peak in the 1970s.

Domestic alcohol consumption has declined, while many small breweries struggle to find new flagship breweries. According to the Japanese Sake and Shochu Makers Association, total production volume today is about a quarter of what it was 50 years ago.

To remain competitive, Koten is among many Japanese breweries trying to find a broader market both domestically and abroad.

“Our main product has always been dry sake, which locals still drink regularly,” said Isao Takahashi, Takahashi’s older brother, who is in charge of the business side of the family operation. “We are now exploring the possibility of making higher value sake as well.”

He supports his sister’s experiments _ each year she creates a limited-edition series, Mie Special, which aims to branch out from the signature dry product.

“My sister might say she wants to try low-alcohol content production, or she wants to try new yeasts — and all kinds of new techniques are coming through,” he said. “I want my sister to make the sake she wants, and I want to do my best to sell it.”

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