After lunch we were given a tour of the Masuichi Sake Brewery, which consists of several beautifully renovated buildings dating back 250 years, set amoung stone paths and traditional landscaping.



At the brewery itself, the brewmaster talked about the history of the place as well as introducing their currect line of sake. I understood little of this, other than a bit about one of their sakes called “Square One”. It comes in a white porcelain bottle adorned only with a black square on top of a horizontal line (the Chinese character for the letter 1), square one being the literall translation of the brewery’s name, Masuichi. The name of the sake also symbolizes the brewery’s fresh start with the arrival of Sarah Mary Cummings, who I talked about a little in my last post.



I also caught the explanation of the round ball of cedar branches called sugidama hanging in front of the brewery. I’ve seen these before and know that they were once made by sake breweries each year, at the same time as they started their sake. They’d hang it by their front door as a way to let customers know when the sake was ready- when the sugidama had turned from green to brown, the brew would be complete.



I’ve never seen a green one though, and the brewmaster explained why- there are few people left who know how (or want to bother) to make them, so places that use sugidama keep them pretty much forever. And since most sugidama are perpetually brown, the colour doesn’t really mean anything anymore. Another change is that these days sugidama are mostly hung infront of izakaya (pubs) and sake retailers rather than sake breweries, so now they are used to identify places where sake is sold, rather than made.

Sad to see traditions like this disappearing, and heartening to see places like Masuichi trying to keep those traditions alive.




Next was a guided tour of the remainder of the brewery complex. Again, I didn’t catch most of what was said, and eventually I just gave up and went off on my own to take pictures.




There was a lot to see, luckily, and all of it was attractive and completely in harmony with the feeling of the place. It was really easy to imagine what it must have been like in centuries past. The complex lacks the ugly signs, electric wires and general visual pollution that mars many of Japan’s tourist spots, which is not an accident- the place has been carefully designed to capture the atmosphere of an Edo-era town.



Outside of the brewery complex, the town of Obuse retains a similar feeling, with plenty of old and old-looking buildings, attractive signs and street lamps, and paths laid with chesnut wood (chesnuts being an important product of obuse).

More than any other place so far, I wished I had a pamphlet in English (although apparently these are available at Obuse’s Tourist Information Centre), because the history of the place is fascinating.




From what I could understand, the town began a beautification campaign began several years ago starting with the revival of the sake brewery, helped along by Cummings. They’ve done an excellent job, and the crumbling old buildings that remain unrenovated only add to the charm of the place.

I do wish we had more time to explore the town, especially the Hokusai-kan, a museum dedicated to the ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai. But Obuse was such an impressive little town that I’m sure I’ll be back again.