Collection: Terada Honke

Terada Honke | Kozaki, Chiba Prefecture

The leading light in natural sakes, Masaru Terada is the 24th generation owner of an almost 350 year old brewery. He believes in making sakes that hark back to centuries past.

Terada Honke employs kimoto and the ancient bodaimoto brewing methods, using natural yeasts that inhabit the air in a time-consuming process to create a starter. The brewery is also one of only a handful of breweries in Japan making their own Koji-kin.

Terada Honke owns 2.5 hectares of land where they grow their own rice. Here they cultivate pesticide and herbicide-free rice of different varieties including Kameno-o, Shinriki and Chiba Nishiki varieties. They are also leading the way in the recovery of old indigenous species of rice of their area. Apart from their own rice fields, they also have 10 local farms growing rice for them; they are all practicing organic farming, but each has its own originality in their natural rice cultivation, such as rice duck farming (a method where ducks are freed in the rice fields, to let them eat the weeds and the bugs) and non-tilled cropping (where rice is cropped without ever ploughing the soil). All of the rice used in production is hand-washed without the use of machines.