William F. O’Connor polishes up our knowledge on the company that made wine-like sake possible.
What is the original alcoholic beverage of Japan? Is this a simple question that the vast majority of people are likely to answer correctly? Well, suspicious readers will have accurately guessed that the rhetorical question posed above suggests that the answer is not sake, or nihon-shu. It just has to be something else, as it is.
…it is clear that the earliest inhabitants of the land that eventually came to be known as Japan were not imbibing sake. Rice is essential in the production of that drink and rice cultivation, it is believed, did not enter Japan until the Yayoi period (circa 300 BCE-250 CE).1
The previous period is known as the Jōmon. There were people, grapes, pottery, blessed wild yeasts, and, of course, wine.
Sake is not a wine, as it is derived from a grain, so ‘brew’ would be the proper term to use to describe it. However, this fact has not stopped many people from referring to it as ‘Japanese rice wine.’ Inaccurate as that may be, these days certain styles of nihon-shu are approximating the sensory profile of unoaked, delicate white wines, their aroma profiles in particular, which can be fruity or floral or…
Yeasts play a very important part in nudging sake in the direction of wine, but the extent to which the rice is polished has also contributed to this in a significant and very interesting way. “I polished up the rice grain so thoroughly, that daiginjo’s now a popular variety.” (An allusion to Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore, “I polished up the handle so carefully that now I am the ruler of the Queen’s navy.”) Actually, ‘style’ of sake is more appropriate, but I claim the right to use poetic license here.
The marvel of milling and the precision of polishing
Why mill rice in the first place? A good question, indeed, if that is what you were thinking. The rice used for the production of sake is brown rice, the outer layer of which contains proteins, fats, nutrients, etc., which are important for sake production but may produce off-flavors in the final product if not partly removed. It should be noted that some drinkers, this writer included, appreciate the flavor components that this outer layer can contribute to the final product and therefore favor a low degree of polishing, which is known as seimai-buai. A polishing rate of 70% means that 30% of this outer layer has been removed. However, a significant number of drinkers prefer a high degree of removal, which can result in a sake that more closely resembles wine. Ginjo and daiginjo have polishing ratios of 60% or less and 50% or less, respectively.
Throughout the years various means have been used to mill rice for sake, but the introduction of the vertical rice-polishing machine in 1933 was a seminal moment, which allowed for two-speed polishing—fast and slow—with the latter employed when the delicate starchy center is near. Champagne may have its Dom Pérignon, who didn’t do what most people assume he did, though his accomplishments were considerable. Cotton candy has its William Morrison, dentist and co-inventor of the cotton-candy machine—from candy floss to dental floss and back again: the never-ending cycle! And rice-polishing has its Satake Corporation, the Hiroshima-based company that invented the machine that has enabled very high polishing rates.
Satake’s game-changing machine
This writer was reminded of that fact when he encountered Satake’s exhibit at FOOMA Japan, Food Processing Technology Expo, which was held at Tokyo Big Site from June 10-13, 2025.
Satake is named after its patriarch, Riichi Satake, who in 1896 invented the machine that would not only make his company an indispensable factor in the world of sake production but eventually facilitate the production of daiginjo and exceedingly high polishing ratios. That invention is the power-driven rice-milling machine. The vertical version of the rice-polishing machine, which made its appearance during the Showa period (1926-1989), gave birth to ginjo-shu and subsequent developments propelled drinkers into the world of daiginjo with the aforementioned high ratios. The objective of all this grinding is not simply to remove the outer layer, but to leave the hard starchy center of the grain, the shinpaku, in an optimal state to make its best contribution to the success of the brew.
1O’Connor, W., O’Connor, R. Drinking Japan: It’s Not Just Sake (Tokyo: Sanshusha, 2019).
Image credit: Lovers Drinking Sake, Utagawa Kunisada