— COLUMN / Brewery
Tentaka Shuzo — Organic Rice, Ancient Methods, Tochigi's Quiet Pioneer
Long before 'natural sake' became a movement, Tentaka was growing its own organic rice and making sake the patient way.
2026年3月11日
Tentaka Shuzo occupies a unique position in Japanese sake history: it was practicing what would later be called “natural sake” before the term existed. Founded in 1914 in Nakagawa, Tochigi Prefecture, the brewery began cultivating its own organic rice in the 1980s — decades before organic agriculture became fashionable in either farming or sake.
The Organic Commitment
Tentaka’s “Tentaka Kokoro” sake is made from 100% organic rice grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers on the brewery’s own and contracted fields. The decision to grow organic rice was not initially a marketing strategy — it was a conviction that the quality of sake begins in the soil, and that a brewery unwilling to tend its own ingredients cannot truly control what it produces.
The Methods
Beyond organic rice, Tentaka uses kimoto and yamahai fermentation starters — traditional methods that allow natural lactic acid bacteria to establish the starter culture over several weeks, rather than adding commercial lactic acid directly. The resulting sake carries the complexity and depth that these slower, more demanding methods produce.
The Sake
Tentaka’s style is not the polished, fragrant ginjo that dominates sake competition medals. It is more grounded, more textural, more umami-forward. The “Kokoro” junmai has a warm earthiness that speaks directly to the soil and the seasons in which its rice grew. It is a sake that pairs better with food than with empty glasses — and there is nothing wrong with that.
The Lesson
Tentaka’s example — quality grounded in the relationship between brewery and land — has become increasingly central to contemporary sake philosophy. Many of the most celebrated “new wave” breweries are rediscovering what Tentaka never stopped doing.