Masaru Terada
Seven with Signor Sake: Masaru Terada (Terada Honke, Chiba)
I’m asking seven questions to my favourite sake makers to hear their story and get their take on the centuries-old craft.
If you visit Masaru Terada’s sake brewery, the only machinery you’ll find is a rice steamer—everything else is done by hand and the power of microorganisms. His traditional and natural approach even extends to his rice paddies, where he protects his organic rice from weeds by using deep-water planting, roaming ducks, and carp instead of chemicals.
Masaru is part of a growing movement of ‘natural’ producers who forgo additives and instead aim to work in harmony with nature. While this is an increasingly popular practice in overseas winemaking, it is still quite rare for sake. Using ambient yeast is risky because sake batches can easily spoil, hence why commercial yeasts are used almost universally. But Masaru believes the risk (and long, labor-intensive process) is worth the reward: a simple but expressive sake that’s full of life.
1. Your father-in-law was well-known and respected for pioneering naturally grown rice. Can you tell us the backstory?
In the 1980s, when my predecessor was young, he started brewing natural sake. Before that, our brewery was making mass-produced sake with lots of additives. However, sales were poor. The business was not doing well, and the owner was always irritated.
He then suddenly fell ill and thought about quitting sake brewing because of the poor sales. He had an intestinal illness, and after undergoing surgery, he looked up at the ceiling from his bed in the hospital and wondered why this had happened to him. He reflected on the fact that he had been doing a lot of rotten things in business, putting money first, when the true nature of sake-making is to have microorganisms gather together happily and ferment. Rather than fermenting, he had gone down the path of decay.
“He reflected on the fact that he had been doing a lot of rotten things in business.”
He thought that if he could make fermentable sake again, it would not only help the world, but keep the brewery afloat and continuing to making sake. He decided to stop buying the cheapest rice he could find and started making Junmai (pure rice) sake with rice grown with care and without chemicals. After a few years of doing this, he decided to stop buying microorganisms and started to use the ones living in the brewery. Compared to ordinary sake, this kind of sake tasted more acidic, had more flavour, and was more peculiar, and Terada's sake was sometimes said to be rotten. At the same time, we were able to continue our business because some people gradually began to say that our sake tasted like old school sake and was just what they were looking for.
2. It’s been almost 12 years since you became part of the Terada family. What have you implemented since joining?
In 2018, I started working as head brewer while also working as the owner of the brewery (traditionally, these were separate positions). There were other brewers, but after I took over, I wanted to challenge myself with more spontaneous fermentation, so I slowly switched to being a brewer while taking responsibility for the brewery’s business side. I had been making a traditional yeast mash for a long time, but I stopped adding yeast to it and used whatever came up at the time. In the past, we used to transfer the yeast from strong starter batches to others, but we have stopped that as well.
“After I took over, I wanted to challenge myself with more spontaneous fermentation.”
That's the biggest change, but every year we alter the way we make sake a little. The details of how we make Musubi are different now than they were ten years ago. The fermentation starter changes with each batch. Sometimes we make about three batches and blend them together. Sometimes we do a tasting of the mash and save the ones we like.
We started using the storage building last year. We are keeping our sake there for long-term ageing. We did have some products that had been stored for about 15 years, though. We don't want to extend the time between the pressing and bottling, but bottled products require a lot of space, so we built a warehouse for storage. The building itself was about 100 years old and was falling apart, so we took it down and asked local carpenters to rebuild it using some of the original wood where possible. The building had previously been used by another sake brewery called Kiuchi Shuzo, and they ran their business until before the war. After the war, there was a corporate reorganisation, and companies that did not have a great track record were integrated, so Kiuchi Shuzo was shut down, and the building had not been used since. These large wooden warehouses cannot be built now due to architectural restrictions. I also learned from the grandfathers around the neighbourhood that after the war, they used to gather in this warehouse for movie screenings, wrestling matches, etc. It was a place with a lot of memories for the old people. I didn't want to simply destroy a place filled with memories and history. It cost a lot of money, about the same amount as building three houses.
3. As a brewer, what do you like about natural sake?
I like the simplicity of it. You don't need to add anything or do anything to make it ferment. I do have to control the temperature, but just mixing the rice, koji, and water always leads to fermentation. It may take 10-14 days longer than expected, but I’m amazed at the power of fermentation that is readily available in nature. I think it's my job to convey that energy to you in the form of sake. I'm always impressed by how magical it is. I’m thrilled every time.
“I’m amazed at the power of fermentation that is readily available in nature.”
4. How do you define natural sake?
Our definition is that it’s made from rice that has not been treated with chemicals and it’s fermented using microorganisms from the brewery. There isn’t an official category though. Each brewery has a different approach.
We used to follow the standard sedimentation process. This is necessary for the filtration process. We used bovine gelatine, but we didn't like it, so we switched to fish gelatine. Then we started thinking that we didn't need to filter in the first place, and now we don't use it. We still do the racking process, but by leaving the pressed sake for about a week and then removing the lees when it sinks down to the bottom. This method leaves some lees in the final product, but we’re okay with that.
It’s not big yet, but I think the natural movement is gaining traction.
5. Using commercial yeast and cultured lactic acid are tools to minimise risk of spoilage and direct what the sake will end up tasting like. You use neither. How do you manage risk with your sake batches?
There have been several times when the sake we produced has gone bad. I experienced this in my second year at the brewery, around 2005. At that time, we were going through an experimental stage to decide whether or not to add cultured yeast. When I added yeast to the starter, it looked like it was going well, but when we started the mash, the fermentation stopped when the alcohol reached 7-8%, and the taste was astringent and flat on the palate. It had a hyper acidic yeast due to rotting. However, after I decided to stop adding yeast, I occasionally got a hiochi (bacterial spoilage) taste, but no more rotting ones.
Musubi is really sour, and some of it tastes like hiochi. However, the aforementioned failed ones turned out sour without being designed that way, but Musubi is planned. Musubi has always been fermented with wild yeast. Before I joined the brewery, it wasn’t selling well at all. We only made 1,000 bottles of it per year, but they would pile up high in the refrigerator, and the brewery workers would wonder when they would sell. Musubi became more and more popular, and for a while, no matter how many we made, production could not keep up with demand. Sales of Musubi increased because it became popular with people who didn’t have a fixed notion of what sake was, and with people who weren’t sake fans. However, since it’s unpasteurised, it can become overly sour during transportation, so overseas sales have been difficult.
“Musubi has always been fermented with wild yeast.”
6. In your opinion, how does wild yeast affect the flavour of sake?
That’s a tough question to answer, but the interesting thing about wild yeast is that the sake takes longer to ferment. So many different kinds of bacteria can jump in. With many different types of yeast at work, the flavour becomes more complex and the acidity becomes stronger. The taste doesn’t deteriorate easily. It also makes the taste more suited for ageing.
Other breweries do not allow natto (fermented soybeans) to be eaten because it increases the number of unnecessary bacteria, but we don’t have any restrictions like that. Our brewery has no problem with people eating natto here. I have never smelled natto in our mash (meaning their mash never got “contaminated” with natto bacteria). There are many kinds of bacteria in our brewery, and natto is just one of them. If you use pure cultured bacteria, you have to cull the mash once before adding them, so if it’s not well culled, there is a risk of spreading bad bacteria. In the case of natural fermentation, lactic acid bacteria increase on their own gradually in the presence of various bacteria, so I don't think that any one bacterium will stand out. Instead, we need to control the temperature carefully.
“The current rice paddies have been pesticide-free for about 30 years since the previous generation quit chemical use in the 1990s.”
7. Can you tell us about the rice farming methods you employ?
We don’t do anything special to the rice fields. In the past, we used to release ducks and carp in all the rice paddies, but now we just weed with a motored weeding device and do deep water management. In deep water management, after harvesting the rice, we fill the water until the rice stalks are just above the surface. Then the water is so deep that other weeds do not grow much due to the water pressure. I go to the rice fields every day to check the water. I would like to pour fresh water into the rice paddies constantly, since I have heard that it is better for the rice because there is more oxygen in the water, but there won’t be enough water in the other paddies, so I adjust the timing accordingly.
For all the land we are newly cultivating, we are using spring water. I would like to revive the fallow rice fields because we can use as much spring water as we want, depending on the weather, and we can manage the water more freely. The current rice paddies have been pesticide-free for about 30 years since the previous generation quit chemical use in the 1990s. We will let the newly cultivated fields settle for a few years and then start planting.
SIGNOR SAKE FAVOURITE SAKES
Terada Honke sakes have a liveliness about them like they’re living and breathing. Every batch is fermented with ambient yeast with absolutely no additions other than rice, koji and water. At the core, each bottle expresses the power of microorganism on the palate and in the body. Flavour wise, they can be wild and funky as well as more subdued with savoury notes taking a front seat.
Daigo no Shizuku
A sweet style sake with a silky syrupy mouthfeel and notes of plum, pear, citrus, chestnut and sourdough. Pair with desserts and cheeses. Serve chilled.
Musubi
Named after their black Labrador roaming around the brewery, Musubi has a particular energy about it that resonates with the old saying; sake is the best of all medicines. Made from brown rice, it drinks like a cross between a sake, a sour beer and a cider.
Katori 80 & Katori 90
Defying the highly rice polished scene again with this pair polished at 80% and 90%. Rice-driven aromas with a savoury and off-dry palate, these are both made with locally grown, organic table rice variety Koshi-hikari. Enjoyable at a range of temperatures and suitable as a daily fall-winter staple.
Official Terada Honke website
https://www.teradahonke.co.jp/en/
