Not long after dawn, Japanese sake brewer Mie Takahashi checks the temperature of the mixture fermenting at her family’s 150-year-old sake brewery, Koten, nestled in the foothills of the Japanese Alps.
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She stands on an uneven narrow wooden platform over a massive tank containing more than 3,000 litres (800 gallons) of a bubbling soup of steamed rice, water and a rice mould known as koji, and gives it a good mix with a long paddle.
“The morning hours are crucial in sake making,” said Takahashi, 43. Her brewery is in Nagano prefecture, a region known for its sake.
Takahashi is one of a small group of female toji, or master sake brewers. Only 33 female toji are registered in Japan’s Toji Guild Association out of more than a thousand breweries nationwide.
That is more than several decades ago. Women were largely excluded from sake production until after World War II.
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Sake making has a history of more than a thousand years, with strong roots in Japan’s traditional Shinto religion.