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Sake Brewing in Fushimi and How Sake Is Made: The Rise and Decline of a Sake Region, Tsuki no Katsura’s Nigori Sake, and Gekkeikan’s Technologies
2026.10.19
The Appeal of Fushimi-MomoyamaAbout the Appeal of Fushimi-Momoyama
Contents
The number of brewers fell in the Edo period, and modern railways expanded the marketLicenses that set how much sake could be made, and rules that closed off marketsWhen did sake shipped to Tokyo turn into payment?A research institute and exchanges among engineers supported the quality of bottled sakeTools for brewing, tools for making containers, and tools for shipping survivePolishing rice, turning it into sugar with koji, and producing alcohol with yeastWhat do three-stage and four-stage brewing adjust?In Tsuki no Katsura’s nigori sake, bubbles form through fermentation in the bottleGekkeikan’s year-round brewing created an environment for brewing outside of winterYumai-zukuri makes the moromi uniform and easier to measureThe sake rice Iwai was revived by preserving its seeds and growing it againIwai No. 2 moved into full-scale production from the 2024 cropThe kakemai rice Kyo no Kagayaki was registered as a variety in 2014Kyoto yeasts create differences in aroma and acidity, separately from how the rice is polishedSeparating brand from brewing method makes products easier to compareReferencesFushimi is a sake-producing area with access to abundant water, but having water did not mean it prospered in every era. The scale of the industry changed with controls on sake brewing, the markets available for sales and the conditions for transport, and research into brewing methods also advanced from the modern period onward.
Even among Fushimi sakes, what must be controlled in production differs between a sake that keeps its bubbles, a sake aged for a long time and a sake brewed throughout the year. Using Masuda Tokubee Shoten’s sparkling Tsuki no Katsura nigori sake and Gekkeikan’s year-round brewing and yumai-zukuri as examples, this article looks at how rice becomes sake and what each technology changed.
The number of brewers fell in the Edo period, and modern railways expanded the market
Fushimi’s sake industry built its foundations alongside the development of the castle towns of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu and the port town that followed. According to the City of Kyoto’s historical commentary, there were 83 sake brewers in 1657, when the sake brewing license (shuzo kabu) system, under which the shogunate designated the businesses permitted to brew sake, was established. However, partly because of the shogunate’s restrictions on sake brewing, the industry fell into hardship by the end of the Edo period. [4] [85]
The City of Kyoto’s cultural heritage survey puts the number of brewers in 1833 at 27 and cites the loss of ground in sales rights within the city of Kyoto and in shipping to Edo as causes of the decline. Having a port is not the same as being able to sell advantageously to large, distant consumer markets. Even in a place where water was easy to obtain, the conditions of sales and distribution determined the fate of the industry. [46]
After the war damage of 1868, the full opening of the Tokaido Main Line in 1889 advanced entry into the Tokyo market. The City of Kyoto explains that production had also increased by around 1908, when the Imperial Japanese Army’s 16th Division was stationed there. The Fushimi sake that continued from the Edo period into the modern era was not made under the same demand or with the same means of transport throughout. [4]
Licenses that set how much sake could be made, and rules that closed off markets
Sake brewing licenses in the Edo period concerned both the business qualification to brew sake and control over the scale of production. However, looser regulation did not necessarily mean that Fushimi’s production increased. Ishikawa Kenjiro, who researched the business history of the sake industry, draws attention to the fact that sake brewing in Fushimi shrank even during the Horeki to Tenmei eras, when sake production was freed to support the price of rice. Not only competition with Nada and other areas but also population outflow from the castle town and constraints on nearby markets overlapped. [R2P002]
Kyoto had its own sake breweries, and from the standpoint of the Kyoto market, Fushimi sake was sake coming from outside. In 1698, the inflow of sake from other places was banned to protect Kyoto’s local sake. Even though Fushimi was within reach by the Takase River, being able to transport sake and obtaining the right to sell it in that market were separate matters. After losing local demand, Fushimi’s brewers needed to look for new markets. [R2P002]
When did sake shipped to Tokyo turn into payment?
Even when trade with Tokyo wholesalers resumed in the Meiji period, it did not mean that breweries could freely set prices or sales volumes. Among the Meiji-era transactions with Tokyo wholesalers that Ishikawa examined were ones in which the settlement price was determined by the wholesaler’s market rate, the brewery received a partial advance payment at shipment and then waited for an annual settlement. In these transactions, it is said that settlement normally took a full two years. Being able to send large quantities over long distances did not in itself mean stable cash flow for breweries. [R2P002]
What became important in this context was the collaboration between Meidi-Ya, which handled a wide range of food products, and Okura Tsunekichi Shoten, later Gekkeikan. It was a combination that put bottled sake made without preservatives onto a nationwide sales network. The technology to stabilize quality at the brewery, the equipment to fill containers and the distributor that sold to consumers were linked, creating a sales channel different from transactions in which sake was sent in casks to wholesalers. Ishikawa regards this change in the sales system as an important factor in explaining the growth of Fushimi sake. [R2P002]
A research institute and exchanges among engineers supported the quality of bottled sake
In Fushimi, a research institute was established to stabilize sake quality. Meiji-era brewers faced not only failures during brewing but also the problem of finished sake deteriorating during storage and transport. Okura Tsunekichi, the eleventh head of Kasagiya, the predecessor of Gekkeikan, established the Okura Sake Research Institute in 1909 and studied conditions for heat sterilization and other matters. In 1911, the company commercialized bottled seishu made without preservatives. [DXP05]
Putting sake into bottles and being able to store the sake inside stably are separate challenges. Compared with selling by measure from casks, bottling allows the container to be handled unopened until the time of sale, but if hygiene before and after filling is inadequate, quality cannot be maintained. As heating and container management advanced, the conditions were in place to send sake far by rail and sell it as the same product at the destination. The expansion of the market for Fushimi sake resulted from changes in both the means of transport and brewing technology. [DXP05]
In 1913, six Fushimi brewing engineers founded the Fushimi Joyukai. Rather than a single company merely improving its equipment, the region’s engineers carried out research together and led it to the development of yeasts and brewing methods. The buildings seen in today’s brewery district are places of business for each company and, at the same time, part of an industrial area where people and technology came together. [DXP05]
Tools for brewing, tools for making containers, and tools for shipping survive
The work of sake brewing is not only the process of fermenting moromi. The cultural property Fushimi Sake Brewing Tools, held by Gekkeikan, includes brewing tools such as those for steaming rice, as well as tools for making tubs and casks and tools for shipping. Handling raw materials, preparing containers and sending out the finished sake were all carried out as a single industry. [39]
Today’s Okura Sake Museum is a historical museum created by renovating a 1909 sake brewery building, and it displays wooden tubs, sake casks, stirring paddles (kai) and other items. Highlights of the brewery district also introduces which processes the koshiki (rice steamer) and small hand buckets were used for. Next, we look at how rice becomes sake and at the differences among brewing methods developed later. [37, 38]
The people who came to work at the breweries were not all from a single region, either. At its peak, Gekkeikan had toji (the people in charge of sake brewing) from six schools: Sannai, Nanbu, Echizen, Tanba, Tajima and Hiroshima. The toji brought kurabito (craftsmen who handled tasks such as brewing), whom they had organized in farming and fishing villages, and entered the breweries during the agricultural and fishing off-seasons. Tools with the same name differ slightly in shape because each of these skilled groups had its own way of working. Fushimi Sake Brewing Tools also conveys the skills of people from various regions who worked at Fushimi’s breweries. [DXP04]
Polishing rice, turning it into sugar with koji, and producing alcohol with yeast
Rice polishing is an important task before the rice is steamed and used to make koji. The outer part of the rice grain contains relatively large amounts of protein, fat and other components, and the degree of polishing affects aroma and flavor. A seimai buai (polishing ratio) of 60% does not mean that 60% has been polished away; it indicates that 60% of the weight of the brown rice remains as polished white rice. The more thoroughly rice is polished, the faster it absorbs water, so washing and soaking also require fine adjustment. The rice that has absorbed water is steamed, with part of it used for making koji and the rest used for brewing the moromi. [10]
The koji mold and the yeast at work in sake brewing are different microorganisms. Rice koji, made by growing koji mold on steamed rice, supplies enzymes that break down starch into sugar. It is the yeast that uses that sugar to produce alcohol. Simply adding yeast to rice does not make sufficient use of the starch. [29]
Moromi is the mixture made by adding steamed rice, koji and water to the shubo (yeast starter) in which yeast has been propagated. In the moromi, saccharification, which produces sugar, and alcoholic fermentation proceed at the same time; this is called multiple parallel fermentation. When the moromi is pressed after fermentation, it separates into sake and sake lees (sake kasu). [29]
What do three-stage and four-stage brewing adjust?
If large amounts of steamed rice, koji and water are added to the shubo all at once, the yeast density and acid concentration drop suddenly. Sake’s sandan jikomi (three-stage brewing) is a method of increasing the batch in separate stages called soe, naka and tome. [R2P015]
Yondan jikomi (four-stage brewing), on the other hand, in which more rice or other ingredients are added in the latter half of fermentation, is used to adjust the sweetness and umami of the sake. In Fushimi, the four-stage method was introduced into actual brewing in 1921, and variations such as mochi yondan, which uses glutinous rice, were also devised. [R2P005]
In 1962, Yamamoto Honke and others put into practical use a brewing method that uses separately cultured yeast and omits the process of making shubo. What was omitted was not the work of the yeast but the stage of growing the shubo inside the brewery. Between the method of propagating yeast from a small initial batch and the method of separately culturing the necessary yeast and adding it to the brew, the staffing, number of days and equipment to be managed differ. [R2P005]
In Tsuki no Katsura’s nigori sake, bubbles form through fermentation in the bottle
Masuda Tokubee Shoten, founded in 1675, is a brewery that places importance on brewing in the depth of winter and on handcrafting. According to the brewery’s history, the thirteenth head developed a sparkling nigori sake in 1964, and the following year, 1965, the brewery began long-term aging of junmai daiginjo in porcelain jars. [8, 23]
The current product description for the nigori sake states that the bubbles are produced by secondary fermentation in the bottle. Fermentation continues after the sake is bottled, and the carbon dioxide produced there becomes the effervescence. Nigori sake is sake made by straining moromi through coarse cloth or a sieve. The pressing method that leaves cloudiness and the in-bottle fermentation that produces this product’s bubbles involve separate processes. [23, 29, 35]
Tsuki no Katsura explains that this product aims for a dry taste that is not too sweet. When purchasing, it is necessary to check not only whether the sake is sparkling but also the storage temperature and how to open it. The aged koshu matured in jars is made by a different method from the nigori sake enjoyed for the bubbles of in-bottle fermentation; it is an effort to mature sake through storage time and the container. [23]
Gekkeikan’s year-round brewing created an environment for brewing outside of winter
In 1961, Gekkeikan completed its shiki jozo (four-season brewing) system for making sake throughout the year. It is production equipment for brewing year-round that combines the mechanization and continuous operation of tasks such as steaming rice, making koji and pressing moromi with control of temperature, humidity and microorganisms. [9]
If conditions affected by seasonal temperatures are controlled inside the brewery, the same processes can be carried out outside of winter as well. Gekkeikan explains that this system also helped address the shortage of successors to the toji, who direct brewing, and the kurabito, who handle tasks such as brewing under them, and that it was also applied to sake brewing in the United States, where the climate differs from Japan’s. It is a technology that expanded the seasons and places where sake can be brewed by reproducing, with equipment, the environment needed for sake brewing. [9]
Mechanization is also used to keep temperatures and processes constant and to make skills easier to pass on. [83]
Yumai-zukuri makes the moromi uniform and easier to measure
Yumai-zukuri, developed by Gekkeikan, is a brewing method in which the starch of the rice is liquefied with enzymes before brewing. From the start of fermentation, the moromi can be stirred more uniformly, making it possible to measure components and temperature continuously and to control the state of fermentation. The company began research around 1980 and presented its results at an academic conference in 1984. [9]
The process has been restructured from a method of handling moromi in which the rice remains as grains to a brewing approach in which stirring and measurement are easier to carry out. The control also incorporates the judgment of experienced brewers, with adjustments made according to the growth of the yeast. Whereas year-round brewing changed when sake can be made, yumai-zukuri is a technology concerned with how sake is brewed and how fermentation is controlled. [9]
The sake rice Iwai was revived by preserving its seeds and growing it again
Kyoto’s sake rice Iwai is a variety selected at a Kyoto Prefecture experiment station in 1931. While it has large grains suited to sake brewing, its tall plants fall over easily, making it difficult to handle under mechanized rice farming. Production ceased in 1974, but the seeds were preserved at a Kyoto Prefecture research institution. After cultivation trials beginning in 1988 and selection of lines, production resumed in 1992. Even a regional rice that continues today is not necessarily a variety whose cultivation has never been interrupted. [R2P003]
Even afterward, problems remained: the plants fell over easily, and the grains tended to crack during polishing and water absorption. A Kyoto Prefecture research institution crossed Hyogo Nishiki with Iwai and then carried out backcrossing, in which the progeny of the cross are crossed again with Iwai, to breed Iwai No. 2. Based on the averages for 2020 and 2021, culm length (kancho), which indicates the length of the stem, was 96.6 centimeters for the original Iwai and 80.0 centimeters for Iwai No. 2. The shinpaku, which appears white at the center of the grain, has also been made small and thin, making the grains less likely to crack when polished or soaked. [R2P004]
Upstream of the description “sake made with Fushimi water” lies the work of preserving seeds, selecting plants that resist falling over and growing rice that can withstand polishing and soaking. Balancing ease of cultivation in the paddies with ease of handling in the brewery, while maintaining the aroma and flavor that breweries seek, is also part of the region’s sake brewing technology. [R2P003, R2P004]
Iwai No. 2 moved into full-scale production from the 2024 crop
The switch to Iwai No. 2 has moved beyond the testing and planning stages. The research monthly report published in June 2025 by Kyoto Prefecture’s Biological Resource Research Center states that, from the 2024 crop, production of Iwai was fully switched to Iwai No. 2. In the Chutan area as well, growers of Iwai No. 2 and other varieties held a meeting in January 2025 to review the previous year’s cultivation and examined yield and quality in preparation for the next planting. [R3I004, R3I005]
In actual production and brewing, challenges have also emerged. In the 2024 crop, separately from the shape of the shinpaku, white immature grains, which fail to mature fully because of heat damage and look cloudy white, appeared; the proportion of rice classified as Grade 1 in quality inspections fell; and in brewing, steamed rice that did not dissolve easily became a problem. An improvement that suppresses lodging, in which stems break or lean, by shortening plant height is not the same as an improvement that maintains rice quality and ease of handling in sake brewing even in hot years. In 2025, the research center began comparing the original Iwai, Kyo no Kagayaki and other varieties and searching for breeding material that combines heat tolerance with steamed rice that dissolves easily. [R3I004]
The kakemai rice Kyo no Kagayaki was registered as a variety in 2014
Steamed rice added to the moromi, as distinct from the rice used to make koji, is called kakemai. Kyo no Kagayaki, bred by Kyoto Prefecture and NARO, is a variety developed as Kyoto’s own kakemai rice. A development document published by NARO in 2012 presented a plan to use the Iwai of that time as kojimai (koji rice) and Kyo no Kagayaki as kakemai, so that both raw rices would be Kyoto’s own varieties. The same document also cites Kyo no Kagayaki’s high yield, its large grains and low protein content, and good results in practical-scale brewing trials. [R3I017]
The application for Kyo no Kagayaki was filed with the national government on March 21, 2012, and the variety was registered on May 16, 2014 (Heisei 26). Cultivation trials, the decision to adopt a variety in the region and national variety registration are each separate stages. Even before the name of a new variety is announced, there is work that goes back and forth between selection in the paddies and brewing at the breweries. [R3I006]
Kyoto yeasts create differences in aroma and acidity, separately from how the rice is polished
Even with the same rice and water, the way aroma and acidity develop changes depending on the yeast used. The yeasts developed by the Kyoto Municipal Institute of Industrial Technology and Culture include Kyo no Koto, first distributed in 2004; Kyo no Hana in 2007; Kyo no Saki in 2014; Kyo no Haku in 2017; and Kyo no Koi in 2020. Since 2021, these have been promoted together as “Kyoto yeasts.” [DXP06]
Kyo no Koto tends to produce large amounts of ethyl caproate, which creates a fruit-like fragrance, and Kyo no Hana produces large amounts of isoamyl acetate, which is reminiscent of bananas. Kyo no Saki is characterized by its production of malic acid and Kyo no Haku by its production of succinic acid, which allows a choice not only of aroma but also of the combination of acidity and umami. A yeast’s name is not a ranking of the sake but a clue to the sake quality the brewer is aiming for. [DXP06]
At Masuda Tokubee Shoten in Fushimi, two sakes were made under the same raw material conditions using Kyo no Hana and Kyo no Koi, and the institute handled the component analysis and tasting evaluation. The trial of blending 2 parts Kyo no Hana genshu (undiluted sake) with 8 parts Kyo no Koi genshu, that is, at a ratio of 2 to 8, led to a product in 2020. A nigori sake fermented in the bottle, a koshu aged for a long time and a sake that blends genshu made with different yeasts each build flavor in a different way. [DXP06]
Separating brand from brewing method makes products easier to compare
What you can check when purchasing are each product’s brewing method, polishing ratio, alcohol content, storage conditions and so on. If you read the technological history of the brewery as a whole as background and compare it with product descriptions such as in-bottle fermentation or long-term aging, you can see the concrete differences. Places where you can compare and buy sake are covered in the shopping guide to Otesuji, Nayamachi and Ryoma-dori, and the relationship between water and fermentation is covered in Fushimi’s water.
References
- City of Kyoto: Famous Waters of Kyoto
- City of Kyoto: Comprehensive Survey Report on Kyoto’s Cultural Heritage, Chapter 4
- City of Kyoto: Designated and Registered Cultural Property “Fushimi Sake Brewing Tools”
- National Museum of Nature and Science HITNET: Industrial Technology History Materials at the Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum
- Kyoto Museums Council: Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum
- Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries: Delicious Sake Comes from Delicious Rice
- Gekkeikan: From Rice to Sake
- Tsuki no Katsura: CONCEPT
- Tsuki no Katsura: Nigori Sake
- Hyogo Sake Brewers Association: About Sake
- Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association: History of Sake
- DXP04: Kyoto Foundation for the Preservation of Cultural and Tourism Resources: Fushimi Sake Brewing Tools
- DXP05: Kyoto Municipal Institute of Industrial Technology and Culture: The History of Sake in Kyoto and Fushimi
- DXP06: Kyoto Municipal Institute of Industrial Technology and Culture: The Birth of Kyoto Yeasts
- R2P002: Ishikawa Kenjiro (1989), The Development of the Fushimi Sake Brewing Industry
- R2P015: National Research Institute of Brewing, Osake no Hanashi (About Alcoholic Beverages), Special Feature Seishu 2, Revised Edition
- R2P005: Fushimi Joyukai: Mastering the Craft
- R2P003: Fushimi Joyukai: Kyoto Sake Rice Iwai and Kyo no Kagayaki
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R3I004: Kyoto Prefecture, Monthly Report on Experimental Research Work, June, Reiwa 7 Fiscal Year
- R3I005: Kyoto Prefecture, Activities of the Chutan-Higashi Agricultural Extension Center, Reiwa 6 Fiscal Year
- R3I006: Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Registered Variety Database: Kyo no Kagayaki, Registration No. 23427
- R3I017: NARO: Kyo no Kagayaki Developed through Joint Research with Kyoto Prefecture, July 2, 2012
Featured image illustration: Cafe & Sweets Parade Kyoto.
