Sake producing regions, Fushimi, Kyoto

One of the most important ingredients for good quality sake is the water, because its mineral content can strongly affect the product's color, flavor and taste. And if the other ingredients, rice, koji and yeast, can be brought from a distance, the water is used throughout the entire process, so it must be available near the sakagura ("sake brewery").

The local climate is also essential, because sake brewing needs cold winters, so there are only a few regions fulfilling all these conditions. The most important sake brewing area is Nada-Gogō in Hyogo, near Kobe, producing the largest quantity of sake in Japan and the second is Fushimi, in Kyoto, together these two regions producing 45% of all the sake!

In today's photo, you can see an old, perfectly conserved sakagura, the Kizakura Sake Brewery, in Fushimi, Kyoto.