Traditionele Japanese 5 Pc Sake Carafe & CupSet

Sake is made from rice, but the process is quite complex and not as simple as is implied by the term "rice wine," which is often used in English to refer to sake. The first sake was "mouth-chewed sake" which sounds quite unpleasant! It means that they chewed the rice and spat it into a pot where the enzymes in the saliva caused it to convert to sugar and ferment.

After a while they figured out how to make it in a more "public" way from rice, water, and a kind of mold that causes the rice to ferment. Soon sake became the dominant alcoholic beverage in Japan, and sake breweries multiplied everywhere with a wide variety of types being produced.

Sake has historically not been the kind of alcoholic beverage used just for getting drunk and riotous partying. In fact, sake is served to everyone including children, although the children do get a watered down version with a lower alcohol content. That's not to say the Japanese don't e njoy a fair amount of drunkenness with their sake though!

However, sake has also been part of the religious life in Japanese culture. In fact, in the Heian period (794 to 1185) sake was used for religious ceremony and people seldom drank it at any other time. So the shrines usually have a good collection of sake barrels, and probably traditionally garbed men to take care of it!
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