As Japan awaits deliberations this year on its application to count sake brewing among the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage listings, Luxembourg residents like Harumi Hayashi, founder of Sense of Japan, are eager to share the traditional product with locals.
The Japanese art of making saké, or traditional rice wine, goes back millennia, with Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines brewing their own by the 10th century. Ornate barrels from yesteryear still line the entrances to some temples in Japan, but it was only in 2022 that Japan submitted an application to have the sake brewing techniques recognized as part of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, with deliberations set to take place this year.
At a recent sake and sushi tasting event hosted by the Japanese Embassy in Luxembourg, Harumi Hayashi, founder of Sense of Japan, poured visitors glasses of sake and provided brief explanations of each. Hayashi had initially set out to start a travel agency when she launched Sense of Japan in 2017 but, just half a year later, after clients returned from Japan and raved about the sake, she decided to start importing herself. At the time, she says, “It was hard to find good quality sake. The choice was limited.”
In the beginning, she says importing the drink “was very difficult. There were high tariffs for importing.” She discovered that Cargolux flew to Komatsu in the Ishikawa Prefecture and says she has used this route ever since. Sense of Japan today works directly with five sake producers—Zaku Kaizan, Hassen, Katsuyama, Toyo Bijin and Senkin—and Hayashi works closely with several restaurants, including the Michelin-starred Ryôdô. But she particularly enjoys proposing tastings to people who have never tried the drink, explaining that sake also “adapts well to European cuisine… and the quality has improved a lot over the last 10 to 15 years.”
There are several factors, she says, that contribute to the quality of the saké, from the water to the particular climate in the region where the rice has grown. The choice of fermentation also plays a large role, and the process of polishing, or removing the outer layers of the grain, impacts the taste. Generally, the more polished the rice grains are, the lighter or more delicate the taste of the final product.
While sake might be a rarer drink in Luxembourg, Japanese Ambassador to Luxembourg Tadahiro Matsubara says, “Japanese culture is closely linked to sake, for example, in seasonal festivals and events such as New Year (Oshōgatsu) and cherry blossoms viewing (Ohanami), which are both celebrated with sake.”
Like Hayashi, he hopes those in Luxembourg will also enjoy sake in its different varieties alongside the wide range of cuisine in Luxembourg, adding: “Throughout history, sake brewers have honed their skills and passed them down from generation to generation. These continuous efforts have created our contemporary Japanese sake culture with its high quality and rich variety. Japan takes great pride in its sake-making tradition.”
Editors note: This article first appeared here on Forbes Luxembourg.
