Tokyo plays host to 4,500 visitors with 400 sake breweries displaying their products.
The world’s largest sake festival has been hailed as a huge success with around 400 sake breweries taking part at the event in Tokyo in June.
There were an estimated 4,500 visitors to the venue in the Japanese capital, with 1,300 varieties of sake available to taste, and representatives from 45 of Japan’s 47 prefectures present.
The gathering was organised by the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association (JSS), with its vice-chairman, Koichi Saura, stating: “Sake breweries are located all over Japan and have been nurtured along with local history, culture, and climate. To know sake is to know the local food culture…”
The festival was keen to highlight how sake can be enjoyed in conjunction with food, much in the same way as wine, with one category that proved particularly popular, awa sake, or sparkling sake. The profile of sake has been enhanced by the growing popularity of Japanese cuisine worldwide, with a recent survey revealing that there are an estimated 159,000 Japanese restaurants across the globe, an increase of around sevenfold in the last 17 years.
