Our last full day in the
Fuji Five Lakes area was spent taking it easy and seeing Danna off. We had
plans in the morning to go to a Sake Brewery for a tasting and tour and
attempted to go to breakfast at a restaurant recommended by the hostel before
hand. For whatever reason, the restaurant was closed, so we went next door the
Seven Eleven and grabbed something there.
From here we made our way to
Ide Sake Brewery. We were the only ones in the tour and we learned everything
from a brief history of Sake to how this particular brewery makes theirs.
Making Sake is a long process and was started hundreds of years ago. It was
first made in the temples by physically chewing th
Today, they clean the rice
in big batches with water from Fuji. The groundwater takes 80 years to filter
down the mountain to the source they use. According to our guide, having good
water is essential to the process. It is more important that the type of rice
they use. After the rice is washed, it is steamed for a short period of time.
The rice is then designated for a couple of different places. It is either
mixed with Koji for one part of the fermentation process, mixed with yeast and
water for the other part of fermentation, or used as mash in the Sake mixture. 
The Koji rice is mixed for
almost 48 hours straight before it is ready to be used. It is turned and mixed
by hand every two hours. The yeast rice mix sits for two weeks before it is
ready to be used. They are both used in a parallel fermentation mix, which
makes it different from beer, wine, and whiskey. It sits in big tanks to
ferment before being pressed and pasteurized. The rice that is left over is
sold for cooking purposes. The Sake is moved into big steel containers in an
air-conditioned controlled room. It’s kept at 10 degrees Celsius. The entire
Sake making process takes place from November to March when it is cold. The
pasteurization process can last up to two years. Other than the area where it
is pasteurized, they do not control the temperature of the room. Because of
this, they have different tricks they use to make sure the temperature stays at
about 10 Celsius.
We were also given a tour of
the grounds of the brewery owner’s home. The Ide Sake Brewery has been in the
same family for over 100 years. The home the family lives in has been around
since the late 1800s. We were not allowed to go into the home, but some sliding
doors were opened so we could look inside. There were painted partition doors
that were pointed out to us because they are over 200 years old. They came from
the previous home that was built in the same location. The last spot we saw was
the Zen Garden. It was a beautiful space with trees as old as the house. There
was even a private shrine because the home was so old. Not many newer homes
will have this. It was an amazing, relaxing space!
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| Cedar Ball |
On our way back to the
tasting room, our guide pointed out a hanging Cedar ball. The owner of the
brewery makes it when the newest batch of Sake is finished. It starts out
green. When we saw it, it was brown. When it turns red, the Sake that is
pasteurizing is ready for bottling and distribution.
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| Sake classification |
From here, we went into the
tasting room and sampled two types of Sake and the Plum Wine. First we tried
Ginjo Sake. I don’t recall what this means, but I thought it was pretty good.
The second Sake was a Junmai and tasted drier than the first. This was Scott’s
preference. I was surprised by how much better I liked the Sake than wine
tastings that I’ve done previously. The last thing we tried was the Plum Wine.
I was a bit nervous about this one because I was told that it could be sweet
and sour. I abhor sour things, but the wine was actually pleasant and my
favorite of the three we tried. I really enjoyed our Sake tour. Our guide was
knowledgeable and friendly, which made our experience great.
After the tour, we parted
ways with Danna and reserved our bus tickets back to Tokyo for the fourth. We
probably could have headed back with Danna at this point in our trip, but I had
wanted to give us plenty of time at Fuji in case we needed it because of the
weather. The rest of our day was fairly relaxing and uneventful. We walked to a
noodle spot recommended by our hostel for having good ‘Fuji’ style noodles. It
was a tiny local little shop. All three of us decided to go the vegetarian
option with our noodles, as the meat option was horse. The noodles were even
thicker than Udon noodles, which I didn’t think was possible. They were
delicious but really filling.
After lunch, we made our way
back to our hostel to hang out and rest for a bit before making our way to
Chureito Pagoda in hopes of seeing Fuji. We took a short train ride to the
location with the Pagoda and followed the signs to the base of the hill. It
advertised having 398 stairs to climb to the Pagoda. By about stair number 100,
I was definitely feeling my legs. Surprisingly, I wasn’t very sore at all from
hiking Mt. Fuji the previous day. However, these stairs reminded me that I had
indeed done some intense hiking the previous day!
Unfortunately for us, this
was the one-day where the clouds did not part in the late afternoon for viewing
Fuji. There was a viewing platform behind the Pagoda that offered a beautiful
view of the Pagoda with Mt. Fuji looming in the distance. We rested and waited
on a bench in front of the Pagoda for a good amount of time, but we could see
that the clouds were not going to be parting anytime soon. I wasn’t too
disappointed at not getting to see Mt. Fuji because in my opinion, I’d already
experienced the best of what Mt. Fuji has to offer. 
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