The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.Once taboo, more Japanese women are brewing sake
By AYAKA McGILL OKAYA, Nagano©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
12 Comments
Login to comment
kurisupisu
I’m slightly horrified!
What next?
Female Sumo?
Yubaru
Careful here, folks will be confused! Not all "sake" is nihonshu! Nihonshu is a specific type of sake, which is a general term for alcoholic drinks in Japan. The Japanese word sake is a general term for alcoholic drinks, including nihonshu
deanzaZZR
For those who are interested in nihonshu but have not yet seen the 2015 film The Birth of Sake consider watching it as it documents one brewing season of the Tedorigawa Brewery in Ishikawa.
The_Beagle
I met a very nice, intelligent and beautiful lady who brewed sake some 25 years ago. Took over her family brewery upon her fathers passing.
John-San
And it only one reason and it not a theory. Is it proven fact. Menstruation is the reason why women are not employed in Sake brewing. The above photo show a brewer checking the temp and once the correct temp is reached a team of brewers start neding the rice which action start off the fermentation. This process happens daily. When neding the rice the room is keep at a precise humidity and sweating occurring which end up in the rice and also adds in the fermentation. If a team of women ned the rice Breweries notice that the team work was effected severely due to fighting among the women after a few months. This fighting was found out to be that the women after a few months would start syncing their menstruation and therefore the PSM timing would sync and it became problematic. This has not to do with religious or superior. It pertain to a gender unable to work as a team. Today this syncing would not happen because health regulation where you have to wear full protection so female to female contact is avoided.
deanzaZZR
Fukucho from Imada Brewing in Higashi Hiroshima is another good choice for female tojis with what some would call a gentle, female touch in terms of flavor profile.
browny1
Many traditional Shinto and Shinto associated customs banned women from engaging in practices. This was known as NyoNin Kinsei (女人禁制) or the Prohibition of Women.
This was based on the notion of Aka Fujo (赤不浄) meaning Red Unclean, which of course meant women who bled during their menstrual cycle.
Sake brewing was one area and as the article noted sake was steeped in Shinto history/rituals.
Another well known case is women being banned from entering the sacred sumo ring - dohyo - (土俵), because of the afore mentioned impurity. No change has been made here.
But good to see such outdated notions being finally discarded as in Takahashi's case.
@Japan Glimpsed
Koten is located in a mixed residential/ commercial district a few blocks from Lake Suwa, hardly the romanticized, bucolic setting suggested by the above.
Eat the left
Lol. What?
wallace
For 30 years an American woman Sarah Cummings has been brewing sake in Obuse Nagano. The first Westerner registered as a sake sommelier, Cummings is the managing director of Masuichi-Ichimura Sake Brewery, a 250-year-old brewery.
https://web-japan.org/trends/people/peo030411.html
iron man
let you all be horrified and discuss the technical differences between sake backward sidewides whatever. then for your homework tonight., study the history about champagne became the first? internationally protected ?? winey , sake stuff, Which genders led the major (now renowned houses) history tells the future (I just got a hint from a s/p, ain't the first time it has happened in jpn. history tells the future. Well done ladies.
GuruMick
The Beagle above ....you met a very nice, beautiful intelligent lady who brewed sake ....and you DIDNT MARRY HER !!!!!