Dream sake rice Yoshino No. 1 brewed into ginjo sake, clean and sweet, winning expert acclaim

The first ginjo in the country made from the ancient sake rice "Yoshino No. 1" is released! Zhongfu Sake Brewery used Yoshino No. 1 produced in Yuanshan, Yilan to make sake. This is a special variety with a century of history that was once presented as tribute to the Emperor and was praised as "Emperor's Rice," and it is quite suitable for brewing. Young farmer Ren Yongxu, who produces Yoshino No. 1, used no chemical fertilizer at all during cultivation and relied on cultivation techniques to overcome Yoshino No. 1's problems of tall plants and easy lodging, and in the end the yield was not even inferior to conventional cultivation records.

The Ma brothers, who run Zhongfu Sake Brewery, said the Yoshino No. 1 grown through this collaboration was of quite good quality, but the domestic sake industry is not as developed as Japan's. Despite the lack of machinery and equipment, being able to successfully make "Yoshino Ginjo" is inspiring. The brewery held a launch event a few days ago, and many related industry operators and scholars attended to taste and evaluate it, considering Yoshino Ginjo to "taste sweet and have a clean sake body," with a lightly elegant fragrance on entry, and when paired with food it neither overpowers the flavors nor fails to show its own style.

Sake needs good sake rice; brewing brings better flavor and aroma

Ma Hezeng, director of Zhongfu Sake Brewery, said, "Most of the rice commonly seen in the country is table rice. Making rice wine is no problem, but if you want to make sake, you need sake rice."

Ordinary rice wine is distilled liquor, while sake is brewed liquor, and the production process and taste are completely different. Most Japanese sake sold on the market is brewed from exclusive sake rice varieties, such as Yamada Nishiki, Gohyakumangoku, Miyama Nishiki, and so on. Compared with table rice, sake rice grains are larger, heavier, and better at absorbing water, with lower protein and fat content. Using sake rice to brew sake makes the sake body fuller, and both flavor and aroma are more ample.

Ma explained that sake brewing first requires polishing the rice, polishing the whole grain down to the remaining rice heart. The rice heart is composed of pure starch. Sake rice has a large white heart and a higher starch proportion than table rice, so it is not only more suitable in quality for brewing sake but also saves costs. Table rice has relatively higher protein and fat content, and polishing it down to only the starch-containing rice heart is also relatively difficult. If it is not polished cleanly, the outer protein and fat will give the sake off-flavors.

In the past, Zhongfu Sake Brewery had contracted with farmers to grow the sake rice "Yoshino No. 1," but the harvests were all less than ideal, until this year when it met Yuanshan, Yilan young farmer Ren Yongxu, and finally had sake rice that could be used to make sake.

Eastern century-old sake rice variety Yoshino No. 1, large heart white, Emperor's Rice, difficult to grow

Yoshino No. 1 is a Taiwan-Japan mixed rice variety that has been passed down for a century. During the Japanese colonial period, the Japanese government encouraged Japanese people to immigrate to Taiwan. In 1913, Aoki Shigeru from Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu moved to Yoshino (the old name of Jian Township, Hualien County) and crossed the Kikuchi rice from his hometown with local Taiwanese indica rice. In 1919, he selected and bred a rice close to the flavor of his hometown, and for a time it spread widely locally. In 1927 it was even presented as tribute to the Emperor of Japan, and from then on it was named "Yoshino No. 1." In 1953, the planted area of Yoshino No. 1 across Taiwan reached 1415 hectares.

The Taitung Agricultural Improvement Station and the Hualien Agricultural Improvement Station once used Yoshino No. 1 as a parent to breed Taitung No. 24 and Hualien No. 18 respectively. Because of Yoshino No. 1's special historical status, the Hualien Agricultural Improvement Station still preserves the variety to this day and conducted purification and fertilizer trials in 1985. Retired associate researcher Li Chaoyun of the Rice Research Office believes that Yoshino No. 1 has large grains and a large heart white in the middle, much like Japanese sake rice varieties, and is suitable for making alcohol.

Peng Yongchuan, a veteran farmer in Jian Township, Hualien, said Yoshino No. 1 is full of aroma, and when one family cooks it, even people across the street can smell it. The varietal characteristics of Yoshino No. 1 are large grains, good elasticity, and stickiness, but the plant is tall, has few tillers, and has soft straw, making it susceptible to pests and diseases and prone to lodging. For farmers, cultivation is extremely challenging, especially the control of nitrogen fertilizer.

Yilan young farmer awakens Yoshino No. 1, no fertilizer throughout, yield on par with conventional cultivation

After decades of silence, this difficult-to-grow Yoshino No. 1 was awakened by a young farmer in Yilan. Ren Yongxu, a young farmer from Yuanshan Township, applied to the Hualien Agricultural Improvement Station this year for Yoshino No. 1 rice seed and trial-planted 0.5 fen of land. No bag of fertilizer was applied during the process, and field management methods were used to overcome the challenges of tall plants and easy lodging.

Ren Yongxu, who just turned 35, graduated from the Institute of Forestry at National Taiwan University and used natural farming throughout cultivation. He said that to grow Yoshino No. 1 well, the key is to reduce the weight of the aboveground part and deepen the roots, so after the rice grew tall he dried the field as much as possible to reduce the water in the field.

"When field moisture decreases, the aboveground part of the rice lacks water, and the roots will dig downward to find water. The aboveground weight decreases, and the probability of lodging drops." Ren Yongxu said that after growing, Yoshino No. 1 is about 140 cm tall, taller than any table rice variety he had grown before. For harvesting he even specially sought veteran operators to help, and after drying it finally came to 180 kg of dry grain. "This figure is very close to the record of the Hualien Agricultural Improvement Station in Jian, Hualien, and almost the same as conventional cultivation yield."

If farmers want to grow it, they can apply to the Hualien Agricultural Improvement Station for seedlings

Of the 180 jin of dry grain from Ren Yongxu's first harvest, 100 kg was provided to Zhongfu Sake Brewery for making alcohol, and 30 kg was bought by other small and medium-sized processors and restaurants, clearly showing that other operators are also quite curious about "Emperor's Rice."

"This is the first time trying to grow sake rice, and for income it will also be better." Ren Yongxu said that processed products are very important to farmers, with less sales time pressure and relatively higher income. In the past he always grew table rice, and only when facing inventory pressure would he ask Zhongfu Sake Brewery to help make processed products. Now that Yoshino Ginjo has been successfully produced, in the future he will adjust the planting ratio of table rice and sake rice. He currently kept 50 kg of Yoshino No. 1 dry grain as seed stock and expects to expand to three fen of land next year.

If farmers also want to trial-plant Yoshino No. 1 sake rice, they can apply to the Hualien Agricultural Improvement Station for seedlings.