It’s that time of the year where we feel the cyclical nature of the sake industry.
While it seems like everything is over for BY7 as most breweries are well and truly done brewing by now and brewers are hitting the festival and event circuit, we see the beginnings of BY8 already underway with rice plantings for the next season taking place across the country.
Last year was a notably hot year for rice and this year is not looking much better. We’re only in May and the heat is real. With rising rice prices, naphtha shortages, declining consumption, climate change, staff shortages and struggling breweries with a lack of successors, it really feels like sake is fighting an uphill battle.
But then again, we go through this every year. And every year we come out the other side with plenty of good sake. So as the cycle begins let’s put our faith in the farmers and brewers that haven’t steered us wrong yet.
And now for the news…
Nagano- We’ve seen space yeast, space rice and more recently Dassai’s space station-produced sake and now yet another unusual regional sake initiative is underway in Nagano Prefecture, where students and local brewers are collaborating on a project to create sake using rice that has traveled beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
Students at Sakuhira Comprehensive Technical High School in Saku recently sowed seeds of sake rice that had spent approximately six months aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The rice was brought back by astronaut Kimiya Yui, a native of Kawakami Village in Nagano Prefecture.
The project was launched to coincide with Yui’s second space mission. Eleven students participated in the initial planting, carefully sowing 200 grams of the rare seed rice, which will now be cultivated and gradually expanded over the coming years.
