This piece, based on a text dated April 19, 2019, uses an interview in the Yomiuri Shimbun with master sake brewer Naohiko Noguchi to portray the essence of the artisan spirit that makes Japan a truly great nation.
From his feel for the brewing floor and his effort to understand customers’ tastes, to his pursuit of the yamahai method and his training of younger successors, it reveals how deeply the Japanese ethic of work and craftsmanship has sustained society.
It is essential reading for understanding the craftsman’s spirit as one of the deepest sources of Japan’s true national strength, standing at the opposite pole from the world of figures such as Asahi and NHK.

2019-04-19
One of the major factors behind why I believe Japan is a true great nation…。
Is the craftsman’s spirit possessed by the Japanese people.

The following is from an article carried in the Yomiuri Shimbun on April 13.
One of the major factors behind why I believe Japan is a true great nation…。
Is the craftsman’s spirit possessed by the Japanese people.
Standing at the exact opposite pole from them are the Asahi, NHK, and the so-called cultural figures…。
It would not be an exaggeration to call them despicable people.

When I was one of the great drinkers of Osaka, the name of Kikuhime also appears here, a sake I drank many times at a certain traditional restaurant.
The master of that restaurant, knowing I was his best regular customer, proposed a blind tasting test of sake to me…。
Sake is the hardest of all to identify…。
So difficult that even we ourselves cannot tell…。
One night, late, when I was the only customer, he suddenly said, “Let’s do it now,” and brought out three kinds of sake.
At the time I was confident, since I had once gotten every answer correct in a blind tasting contest of twelve kinds of beer, but the moment I took a sip, I immediately thought, yes, sake is difficult.
Because it contains more than twenty kinds of amino acids, it becomes a complex flavor.
But even so, I…。
To my own admiration, identified every one of them splendidly…。
The master was truly astonished…。
Needless to say, he came to show even greater respect for my sense of taste.
Laughs.

Sake brewing.
Kōji is the lifeline.
Also probing the tastes of foreigners.
The tōji, a modern master craftsman.
Mr. Naohiko Noguchi.

There was a two-year blank after I retired as a tōji, but the year before last I returned at a brewery in Komatsu City, Ishikawa Prefecture, named the “Naohiko Noguchi Institute.”
There were voices from fans saying, “If you are well, then make fine sake again.”
If I stay at home doing nothing, my physical condition is not good either.
After all, I am a man of work, I think.

We also set up a tasting room in the institute.
I cannot drink, I am a man who cannot handle alcohol.
So I have made sake by listening to the voices of customers and making the sake that makes them happy.
Here I want people to drink the sake and tell me what they think.
I have them write their impressions in a notebook, and I intend to use that in the brewing.

There are seven young employees in their twenties and thirties.
I too get up at four every morning and make sake together with them.
Once the brewing begins, I live in the dormitory attached to the brewery.
This season too, I came last September and will work until May.
My wife and children were against my returning as a tōji.
Because I am away from home for more than half a year.
I came here almost as if running away.

I realized keenly at Kikuhime, where I first became a tōji, that one must not make sake based only on one’s own thoughts.
It was a brewery in Tsurugi Town, Ishikawa Prefecture.
Now Hakusan City.
When I was young, I learned sake brewing in the Tōkai region.
Because it is a warm region, the sake there is clean and delicate.
But when I made sake in that style in my first year as tōji, the reputation was terrible.
People kept saying, “Too thin.
I cannot drink this.”

In Tsurugi Town, mountain work such as logging was thriving.
Local people would come down from the mountains hungry in the evening, sit on the veranda of the liquor shop, and drink about two gō as their evening sake.
When they drank it, they slept well and awoke well.
What was required there was a rich, full-bodied sake.
But mine was that clean Tōkai-style sake, and it was not accepted at all.
Around that time, I encountered yamahai brewing.
At the time, in order to make the moto.
That is, the starter in which the yeast necessary for fermentation is propagated.
The mainstream was the quick-brew method, which adds commercially available lactic acid.

Yamahai, on the other hand, takes in naturally occurring lactic acid bacteria, so it requires effort and time.
But the taste is completely different.
I went to a Kyoto brewery for three years.
When spring came, I would bring the sake I had made and ask for opinions.
Only after ten or fifteen years did I finally begin to have confidence as a tōji.

Sake is made from rice.
If you cannot feel the deliciousness of rice, then I do not think it is sake.
And then there is the lingering impression as it passes the throat, and the refreshing sharpness after it has gone through.
A finish so clean that you think, “Where did that taste just go?”
It is a sake that makes you want to drink more the more you drink it.

As the saying goes, “First kōji, second moto, third brewing,” kōji-making is the lifeline of sake.
Whenever I enter the kōji room, I always eat the kōji.
From the feel when I chew it, I judge whether the hyphae can penetrate the rice easily.
At night, I eat kōji two times, three times, and because of all the cavities, I ended up with full dentures in my forties.

Foreigners who drank my sake in Tokyo come all the way out to this countryside to buy it.
From now on as well, I want people abroad to drink it widely.
Even among Japanese, tastes change depending on the land and the era.
I think it is necessary to study the tastes of people overseas and make the effort to create markets.

Fortunately, when this place was established, there were many applicants.
Of the apprentices I taught before, more than a dozen are now active as tōji in various places.
Even now, I receive consultations by phone, and we exchange the sake we make.
The young people here too come right up against me.
For a craftsman, the best way is to learn with the body.
(Interviewer: Hiroyuki Yoneyama)