Thank you for visiting the Sakura Town Sake Store blog today!
We hope you enjoyed our last blog where we shared with you the secret to enjoying hot sake. If you haven't seen it yet, please click here!
You all know, of course, what sake is made of??
That's right, the raw material for sake is rice. But do you know what kind of rice is best suited for sake brewing?
Rice produced for the purpose of sake brewing, not for eating, is called "shuzo-kotekimai" (酒造好適米). "shuzo" means sake brewing, and "kotekimai" means the best rice for sake brewing, so the two together mean the best rice for sake brewing.
This " polishing" process is expressed as " polishing ratio" based on how much brown rice is removed before the rice is milled. You can check the following sake graphs in Sakura Town.
So, does sake taste better the more polished it is? It is true that sake is sold at a higher price because the more polished it is, the less miscellaneous taste it will have. However, the more polished sake is, the more wasteful it becomes.
Rice tastes better when well polished. Is this really true?
We believe that even if the rice is not polished very well, delicious sake can be produced through the efforts of the brewer.
Please try "HOTARU" in Sakura Town.
Only 20% of the rice is polished, no "sake rice" is used, and the rice is grown without the use of any pesticides. Sake rice is rice used exclusively for sake brewing and must be discarded when leftover.
To eliminate waste, expensive and difficult-to-brew high-grade rice is used, and the low-polishing process is used to create the perfect taste of HOTARU.
