Tradition ascribes the introduction of saké to Japanese culture to some emigrants from Korea about the end of the third century, who doubtless obtained the knowledge from China where it had long been practiced. The first saké was called kuchikami no saké, or "chewing-in-the-mouth sake." Rice, chestnuts and millet would be chewed by the whole village and then spat out into a tub to ferment (As with yeast, saliva has the property to convert starches to sugars, as well). In those days, saké was eaten along with the rice mash, or drunk through straws, as it pooled at the bottom of the fermentation container. Soon, though, japanese discovered the properties of koji, and the production of saké changed to a more hygienically correct method and one easier to reproduce.

Of course in the Orient, as in Europe with the alewives, saké brewing was the women's job. During the first centuries of saké production, only virginal women were allowed to brew sake. And though the modern profession of saké production primarily consists of men, the title of toki, by which they are called, translates to "woman of the house".

In Japan, saké was an important part of Shinto religious festivals. The gods who've protected the fields were offered saké after the harvest, and wedding celebrations or New Year's festivals weren't complete without saké on hand to bestow a benediction. Marco Polo encountered Chinese saké on his travels and describes it as ".. a liquor which they brew of rice with a quantity of excellent spice, in such fashion that it makes a better drink than any other kind of wine; it is not only good, but clear and pleasing to the eye. And being very hot stuff, it makes one drunk sooner than any other wine."

In Japan, in the Late Period, that is from the 1500s through to the opening of Japan to the West, saké was brewed in almost every household in Japan, but commercial breweries were present and growing. The Japanese districts of Itami and Ikeda had established their superiority in saké production over all others, a position which, together with Nishinomiya, they held for the next 400 years. As has been stated previously, saké is made primarily of rice, koji rice and water: the best rice was grown in the Mino, Higo, Ise, Owari, Totomi, and Hizen areas, and shipped by the koku, a measurement basically a little less than a barrel, to the breweries. The koji was either produced at the saké brewery itself, or at separate and independent koji works and purchased by the brewery. And the water was locally acquired from fresh mountain springs.


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