Well this past week we finished pressing the very last batch of sake. This batch was a very special sake, I have never heard of any kind of sake like this. It is very very sweet, and I am told after aging it for a bit it will come out like a Port wine. It tasted really good straight from the pressing machine, the sweetness overwhelmed the usual acidic bitter bite that just pressed sake usually has. It is now very sad to look around the brewery and not hear the familiar sound of bubbles coming out of the vats or the strong smell of sake brewing in the air. Also with this final pressing we said farewell to my old roomate Shinohara, as he now has to go back to work at the resturant since there won't be so much work to do here at the brewery. Or so they said.
So now there is only 5 of us, and after the final pressing it looked like smooth sailing. All we did was clean, not hard core cleaning, more like putting cloth into boxes, spraying down a few tanks, sweeping the floor. We even took extra long breaks because there just wasn't that much to do. Then the bottles started to arrive. I didn't actually see anybody unloading the bottles, just as I was working I would notice piles of 20-30 boxes appearing all over the place. There was one pile just outside the window where we ate, then the next day another pile appeared at the warehouse. Then another two suddenly sprouted up just outside the brewery. When the last two piles came, the Toji (head brewer) took me to the warehouse across the way and showed me three huuuuuge mountains of sake cases, all filled with sake. He pointed to them and told me that these were the leftovers from previous years and that they are to be used as a neutral sake for blending. He then told me to move all 300 cases of them into the brewery.
Two grueling days later Ichigawa-san and I managed to haul all of them over, and then the 'real' work began. We had to uncap and dump all 300 cases of sake into a giant tank. This was accomplished using a bottle opener, a rack, a tub and a pump. A hose running from the large tub to the pump and then on to the waiting tank was set up. Then the rack, which was really just a flat piece of wood with about 30 circular holes cut into it was laid on top of the tub. Toji-san would uncap all of the bottles in a crate and slide it across the floor to me. I would grab the case, and throw sake bottles neck first into the pre-cut holes in the wooden slab so that the sake would run out into the tub below. Ichigawa-san would then take the empty bottles from the rack, replace them in the crates and move them over to the washing area. When the tub got full we would turn on the pump and the sake would be sucked out to the waiting tank. It was painful. The tub and sake crates are only about a foot high which ment that I had to bend over the entire time. My back has never been so sore not to mention my arms and I was dying before noon even came around.
Then bottling began. All of the bottles we dumped had to be washed, dried and put away, At the same time all of the piles and piles of new bottles that were lying around the warehouses also had to be rinsed out and filled. I am now surrounded every day by thousands upon thousands of bottles, empty cardboard boxes, plasic sake cases and corks. Water flies everywhere, more boxes filled with new bottles arrive every day, cases of freshly filled sake get taken out and every night I sleep like the dead. iIt's awsome. I also am developing a 'ferral' look because I haven't had a haircut since December haha. I'll have to get one before my girlfriend comes to visit in two weeks.
Also it's spring!! The cherry tree flower buds are ballooning and any day now they will erupt into a halo of pink and white flowers. Very exciting!!! I've seen it like a million times on TV and the image of cherry trees blooming in Japan is almost cliche but I can't help but get exited over experiencing it myself for the first time. Until next time,
To be continued...