Tsuji Honten· 辻本店

Katsuyama, Maniwa City, Okayama Prefecture · Est. 1804

Tsuji Honten is one of the most singular breweries in Japan: the house that brought bodaimoto sake back to life. Bodaimoto is a yeast starter method developed by Buddhist monks during the medieval period, in which raw rice is soaked in water to cultivate natural lactic acid bacteria before fermentation begins. The result is sake with unusual depth — rich and layered, with a gentle wild acidity that sets it apart from anything made by modern methods. By the twentieth century, the technique had nearly disappeared entirely. Its revival at Tsuji Honten began when a family relative dealing in Japanese antiques in the UK came across an eighteenth-century compendium containing one of the last known recipes. The brewery's then-toji began experimenting in 1984, and two years later released the first bodaimoto sake in living memory. Today, every sake they produce is made using this method.

The rice behind all of it is Omachi — the oldest extant native sake rice in Japan, first cultivated in Okayama in 1859, and the genetic ancestor of Yamadanishiki and many of the varieties that followed. Among sake enthusiasts, Omachi has a devoted following all of its own, prized for the earthy, expressive umami it brings to the glass. For Soichiro and Maiko Tsuji, using anything else was never really an option: Okayama is Omachi's home, and they felt that as an Okayama brewery, they had a duty to honour that. Since the 2022 brewing year, Tsuji Honten has become the first brewery in Japan to brew its entire lineup — from daiginjo to futsushu — exclusively with Omachi. They work directly with contracted farmers across the prefecture on the Tokujo Omachi Project, a sustained effort to cultivate rice meeting the highest possible quality grade. The brewery takes the entire harvest, non-graded rice included. Nothing is turned away.

Leading this work are two siblings: Soichiro, president, and his older sister Maiko, toji — seventh generation of the Tsuji family. Maiko was the first female toji in Japan, a distinction earned not by birthright but by years on the brewing floor, quietly mastering a craft that few women before her had been allowed to enter. Together, she and Soichiro have transformed the brewery from the inside out: breaking down the walls between brewing, bottling, and sales; hiring full-time brewers rather than seasonal workers; and staking their entire identity on Omachi and the old monk's recipe that found its way back to them from across the world.