The history of sake — from offering to the gods to SAKE worldwide

Sake began when rice farming arrived. For more than two thousand years it has sat between people and their gods, at the center of festivals and of ordinary life. Here is that long story, at a walk.

It started as something offered to the gods

Wet-rice cultivation reached Japan in the Yayoi period, and it is thought that fermented rice drink began soon after. The Chinese Records of Wei notes that the people of Wa were fond of drink; the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki are full of sake in myth — including the yashiori no sake brewed to subdue the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi. Before it was anything else, sake was shinsen: an offering set before the gods.

The temples that refined it — "sobo-shu"

In the Heian period the imperial Miki no Tsukasa oversaw brewing, but by the medieval era the center had moved to the temples. The sobo-shu brewed at temples in Nara was judged the finest of its age. At Shoryaku-ji, the techniques that underpin modern clear sake were established: bodaimoto, which uses lactic acid bacteria to hold off spoilage organisms; morohaku, using polished white rice for both the koji and the main mash; and pasteurization by heating. This is why Nara is called the birthplace of clear sake.

Edo sake, modern sake

In the Edo period the great brewing regions — Nada, Fushimi — came into their own, and cold-season brewing and the toji master-brewer system took hold. From the Meiji era onward, science entered: pure yeast culture and the fast-souring sokujo starter made quality reliable. After the rice shortages of the war years, the late Showa period brought the flowering of tokutei meisho-shu — ginjo, junmai and the rest — and an era of competing on quality rather than volume.

And then, SAKE

In 2024, traditional Japanese sake brewing was inscribed on UNESCO's list of Intangible Cultural Heritage; sake became, formally, part of the world's culture. As its popularity abroad keeps rising, one question is being asked again: how was the rice grown? Our natural sake sits at the leading edge of those two thousand years and turns back toward the beginning — toward the growing of rice.

• Yayoi periodRice cultivation arrives; rice-based drink begins
• Nara – HeianBrewing under the imperial office; the Engishiki records many kinds of sake
• Muromachi periodBodaimoto and morohaku brewing established at Shoryaku-ji in Nara — the birthplace of clear sake
• Edo periodNada and Fushimi flourish; cold-season brewing and the toji system take hold
• Meiji – ShowaPure yeast culture, the sokujo starter, and the shift from grading to designated types
• 2024Traditional sake brewing inscribed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage

The history of natural cultivation — the farming that adds nothing

Natural cultivation uses no pesticides and no chemical fertilizer — and no compost or organic fertilizer either. The crop is grown by the soil and the plant alone. The idea has its roots in Japan.

The source — Mokichi Okada and Masanobu Fukuoka

One origin of the philosophy is the fertilizer-free farming proposed by Mokichi Okada in the 1930s: soil already holds the power to raise a crop, and fertilizer tends to diminish rather than add to it. Masanobu Fukuoka, known worldwide for The One-Straw Revolution (1975), argued for no tilling, no fertilizer, no pesticides and no weeding — and his thinking went on to shape permaculture well beyond Japan.

"Miracle apples," and the spread

What brought the term into wide public view was Akinori Kimura, an apple farmer in Aomori. He spent roughly a decade achieving what everyone had told him was impossible: apples grown with no pesticides and no fertilizer. His story became a book and then a film — Miracle Apples — and from there the challenge spread to rice and vegetable growers across the country.

How is it different from organic?

Precisely because nothing is given, the plant roots deeply on its own and grows in partnership with the microbial life beneath it. The yield falls well below conventional farming. What ripens instead is rice with little coarseness and a great deal of life in it.

Why natural cultivation for sake rice

Sake fermentation is microbial work: koji turns the starch of rice into sugar while yeast turns that sugar into alcohol. Rice that carries no excess nutrient ferments straightforwardly, and is said to yield sake that is clear and cleanly cut. Brewing borrows the power of microbes; natural cultivation grows the rice with the power of microbes. The two belong together more naturally than it first appears.

Growing rice naturally — a year that runs from seed to seed

Natural cultivation does not end at the harvest. Seed for the following year is chosen from the plants that ripened best, and carried into the next spring. Hatsushimo has come around that circle for more than fifteen years. Here is a year in a field where nothing is added.

It begins with the seed — saving your own

In most paddies, buying seed rice each year is simply how it is done. We don't. In autumn we take seed from the healthiest plants in the field and use it for the following year. Over more than fifteen years of doing this, Hatsushimo has slowly fitted itself to the soil of this field and the weather of this place, becoming a rice that grows strongly without fertilizer — a rice belonging to this field alone. To carry the seed forward is also to carry the memory of the land.

Spring — raising seedlings, and planting

In spring we sort the grain in salt water, keeping only the full seed that sinks, and raise strong seedlings from it. In natural cultivation we rely on neither chemical disinfection nor fertilizer, even at the seedling stage. Planting is done with generous space between clumps: give each plant enough light and air, and it will tiller on its own and grow resistant to disease.

Summer — the real work is the weeds

In a paddy with no herbicide, weeding is by far the hardest labor. We manage water depth to hold back germination, push a rotary weeder between the rows, and pull by hand whatever is left. It is plain, patient work under a hard sun — and that labor is exactly what the rice is worth. In a field without pesticides, the frogs, spiders and dragonflies come back. The abundance of living things is the clearest proof that a paddy is healthy.

Ripening on the strength of soil alone

In an unfertilized paddy, soil microbes break down organic matter and pass nutrients to the plant. The rice searches, rooting deep and wide, and takes its time. There is far less of the softness and pest damage that comes with excess nitrogen; the grain may run slightly smaller, but it finishes tight and clear in flavor. The yield does not come close to conventional farming. Even so, there is a transparency here that no other rice gives.

Autumn — the harvest, and the next year

Once the heads hang gold, the harvest begins. In our fields you will still find the whole family out with sickles, cutting by hand. From what is cut, the seed for next year is chosen — and there the circle starts again. That Hatsushimo travels in winter to Kuramoto Shuzo in Tsuge, Nara, and is brewed as Peace "以和為貴."

What "natural sake" means

As natural wine grew into a category of its own, a parallel current has been moving quietly but steadily through sake — sometimes called shizen-shu, sometimes natural sake.

Next door to natural wine

Natural wine settled into restaurants and wine shops worldwide as a term for wine made with minimal intervention, from the vineyard through to the cellar. Natural sake turns that same gaze on sake. The sake given the name tends to care about three things: how the rice was farmed (no pesticides, no fertilizer), how the starter was made (kimoto, bodaimoto and their kin), and what was left out (brewer's alcohol, enzyme preparations and other additions).

The three elements

1. Rice — how it was grownNaturally cultivated or pesticide-free rice. This is where we place the most weight, and we limit ourselves to 100% natural-cultivation rice.
2. The starter — how fermentation is set goingA kimoto-family starter (kimoto, yamahai, bodaimoto) that works with the microbes and lactic acid bacteria living in the brewery. Nara is where bodaimoto began.
3. The hand — how much is left to natureNo additives; temperature and time as allies; people working alongside the microbes rather than over them.

Not "clean" sake — living sake

The appeal of natural sake is not uniform beauty. It is that the memory of one year's field and one brewery's winter arrives intact in the bottle. The same label changes expression from year to year. That is not a flaw; it is what sake looks like when it is treated as an agricultural product. Through a single cup, the drinker ends up in conversation with a particular season and a particular field.

There is, as yet, no legal definition of the term. That is exactly why it matters how honestly a maker faces the word "natural." We commit to being transparent about all of it — the rice, the method, and what appears on the label.

What makes Junmai Ginjo different

Junmai, ginjo, daiginjo, honjozo — the words crowding a sake label come down to just two questions. How much was the rice polished away? And was brewer's alcohol added?

The map of designated sake types

Junmai × ginjo — the best of both

Junmai Ginjo means sake made from rice, rice koji and water only, with at least forty percent of each grain polished away (a polishing ratio of 60% or lower), fermented slowly and cold in what is called ginjo brewing. The protein and fat concentrated in the outer layers of the grain are what produce coarseness, so removing them leaves a clearer flavor. The long, low-temperature fermentation then generates ginjo-ka — the aroma that suggests apple and melon.

So Junmai Ginjo holds both sides at once: the depth and roundness of rice that junmai gives, and the bright aroma and clean texture that ginjo gives. It sits easily alongside food, which is why it works both as a way into sake and as somewhere to stay.

The extravagance of a naturally grown Junmai Ginjo

Taking rice that already yields little, and then grinding away another forty percent of it — on paper it is a wildly extravagant thing to do. Our Junmai Ginjo polishes Hatsushimo, seed-saved for over fifteen years, to sixty percent, and ferments it slowly and cold. Because the rice has real strength to begin with, polishing and slow fermentation give an aroma that stays gentle, a flavor that stays clear, and a cup that seems to carry the air of the field with it. We think Junmai Ginjo is the form in which naturally cultivated rice speaks most clearly.

How sake is made — the journey of a single grain

Sake is made by multiple parallel fermentation, a technique with few parallels anywhere. Koji converts starch into sugar at the same moment that yeast converts that sugar into alcohol — two fermentations running together in one tank.

1. Polishing (seimai)The outer layers of brown rice are ground away, taking with them the protein and fat that cause coarseness. For Junmai Ginjo, at least 40% is removed.
2. Washing and soaking (shinseki)The rice is washed and left to absorb water, timed to the second. The absorption rate decides how it steams.
3. Steaming (mushimai)"Firm outside, soft within" — loose on the surface, tender at the core, the ideal texture for koji mold to work its way in.
4. Koji making (seikiku)Koji spores are sown over the steamed rice and tended for around two days and nights. "First koji, second starter, third the mash" — this is the heart of the work.
5. The starter (shubo)Yeast is grown up in good health while lactic acid holds off unwanted organisms. Kimoto, yamahai and bodaimoto are the traditional methods that rely on wild lactic acid bacteria.
6. The mash (moromi), in three additionsSteamed rice, koji and water are added in three stages over roughly three to four weeks. Fermenting it slowly and cold is what makes it ginjo brewing.
7. Pressing (joso)The mash is pressed and separated into sake and lees. The aroma of new sake as it runs is a privilege reserved for the brewery crew.
8. Pasteurizing, ageing, bottlingAfter gentle heat pasteurization the sake is aged, and bottled once the flavor has settled into place.

The real makers are microbes

Koji mold, lactic acid bacteria, yeast. Making sake is, in the end, nothing but keeping conditions right so that organisms too small to see can do their best work. The soft water rising behind Kuramoto Shuzo keeps fermentation gentle; the cool climate of Tsuge is ideal for long, cold fermentation. Naturally cultivated rice brings a straightforward, powerful fermentation into that. From the microbes of the field to the microbes of the brewery — natural sake is brewed as a relay between them.

The sake of Nara — the pride of where clear sake began

"Birthplace of Japanese clear sake." A stone marker carrying those words stands in the grounds of Shoryaku-ji in Nara. To brew in the home of sake carries a particular weight for us.

It all began in Nara

In the Muromachi period, the temple sake of Nara was known as Nanto morohaku and held in the highest regard in the capital as the finest drink of its day. Morohaku brewing, using polished white rice for both koji and mash; bodaimoto, using lactic fermentation to suppress spoilage; heat pasteurization to prevent it going off — the template for modern clear sake brewing is said to have been set in the Nara of that era.

The revival of bodaimoto

Bodaimoto had long since fallen out of use. In the late 1990s a revival project brought it back, joining Shoryaku-ji with Nara breweries and research institutions. Every January the starter is now made at the temple, and the participating breweries each brew their own bodaimoto sake. Kuramoto Shuzo has studied that tradition closely, and brings its knowledge of lactic acid bacteria to bear on its own brewing.

The land of Yamato, and its sake

The mountains ringing the Nara basin, the clear rivers of Yoshino, the cool air of the Yamato Plateau. Nara is also home to Omiwa Shrine, which takes Mount Miwa itself as its deity and is revered as the shrine of the god of sake — the land itself is bound up with the drink. The sugidama, the cedar ball hung outside breweries, is said to have originated with the cedars of that shrine.

Nara is interesting right now

In recent years Nara has become a place sake drinkers watch closely: breweries taking on traditional bodaimoto, recreations of ancient brewing such as Mizuhana, and a rise of small breweries with real character. Within that, we are attempting a combination that is at once the oldest and the newest — the birthplace of clear sake, and naturally cultivated rice. Just as brewing a thousand years ago was a conversation with microbes, our sake too comes out of trust in the microbial life of the field and the brewery.