Niigata is home to the most sake brewers of all Japan’s prefectures, but as consumption trends change, many traditionally sound businesses are turning to a beverage originally from halfway ...

NIIGATA—Young brewers are trying to breathe fresh air into the struggling local sake industry here that once made waves across the nation. Sake sales are on a downward trend across the nation ...

At Niigata Station we sample sake from the dizzying array on offer. We visit an old brewery that has converted one building into a tourist attraction. One sightseeing train—so popular it's ...

Niigata prefecture in Japan is renowned for growing rice, as well as rice-derived products, such as crackers, miso, and sake. Manufacturing these creates a significant amount of unused resources ...

"In the countryside, many families have lived here for generations," says Rumiko Obata, the fifth-generation owner of Obata Sake Brewery in Sado Island, Niigata. "All the neighbours know and ...

The reasons behind the ban remain obscure. One theory is that women were considered impure because of menstruation and were ...

Niigata is a leader in land-based aquaculture ... but they are otherwise disposed of as industrial waste. Producing sake, a rice wine, also leaves behind sake-kasu, the scraps of rice left after ...

vice director of the Sakeology Center at Niigata University. “Another theory is that as sake became mass produced, a lot of heavy labor and dangerous tasks were involved," he said. "So the job ...