Masuda and me in his family brewery founded in 1675
On a trip to Japan, the family and I drank two kinds of sake: good sake and really good (even mind-blowing) sake with local flavor.
We sampled the latter at a Fushimi / Kyoto brewery called Masuda Tokubee Shoten, a pioneer for high-end sake.
The Fushimi locale is prized for sake because of the quality of its ground water that filters through the nearby Monoyama hills and is used in rice plantations. In other words, the water the rice plant absorbs effects the taste of the grain, and ultimately, the sake.
“Rice is important,” says Tokubee Masuda the 14th generation here, “but water is even more important.”
Masuda in his sake aging loft
