Day 14: Fushimi Sake-Village

After the very spiritual but also very wet experience on Mount Inari, I was now in the mood for some fun. Originally I had the old Imperial Palace on my list, but I was too frozen and my feet hurt as well. I had planned to visit a sake brewery in Kobe or Akashi, but my schedule didn’t allow that. But don’t despair! There is the Fushimi Sake Village in Kyoto!

Flower ice cream in (thisis)Shizen

Ice cream in (thisis)shizen

Before getting drunk, I made a quick stop at the flower shop (thisis)Shizen. Not so much because of the flower arrangements, although they were beautiful too. No, a bunch of Instagram posts lured me there in true influencer fashion.

As is almost always the case when it comes to eating in Japan, the visual experience is as important as the taste of the food. And the small cafe was no exception. Softice, shaped into magical flower arrangements, a lovely warm tea, and a calming atmosphere with quiet, unobtrusive music. It was really good, and even the fact that the ice cream itself tasted relatively bland didn’t detract from it. It was beautiful to look at in any case.

I enjoyed the opportunity to put my feet up and, while I leisurely sipped my tea, I tried to find out where exactly this ominous sake village was and what one could do there.

Sake-Tasting in Fushimi Sake-Village

Sake-Tasting in the Fushimi Sake Village
18 different Sakes to taste!

Well, Google Maps helped with the first one – basically back to Fushimi (yes, who would have thought). But the “village” turned out to be trickier to find. The sake district itself was a no-brainer, and I could have easily stocked up on a year’s supply here. But for the sake tasting I wanted to go to the actual Sake Village (confused already? I certainly was!).

18 different sakes from the region, neatly sorted by drinking recommendation – the glasses may look small, but in the end, there were probably almost two bottles of sake. So I was pretty tipsy. Luckily you can also eat there. First I tried dried fish skin. Sounded strange, and looked even stranger. But it was super tasty. Then I had a variation of Okonomi, more kind of a stew, which was then slowly fried this time. That was also extremely good.

And of course the sake! When I drank sake for the first time in Germany, I was only moderately impressed. It wasn’t until Caroline gave me a really good bottle of Akashi-Tai that I developed a taste for it. The range in terms of both quality and taste is enormous. There is really no such thing as bad sake in Japan. Even Gekkeikan standard, which is the only brand you can buy easily in Germany, is more than just OK.

But in Kansai, one of the centers of sake production, everything was a lot better. The selection in the 18-glass sampler was very balanced and carefully put together. In retrospect, I should have bought something there and then. I was sure I could get most of the varieties in Tokyo before I left for Germany, but that was a mistake…

Pictures – click on the photo for more information:

To the previous destination – Back to the overview