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Daisuke Suzuki lost all hope when he saw the 15-meter (50-foot) wave engulf his family brewery and then again when he had to flee his hometown of Namie several days later as a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) radius no-go zone was enforced around the nearby Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors following its catastrophic meltdown.
“Nobody would say it out loud,” Suzuki recalled on a recent trip back to rubble ruins of what remains of his destroyed sake brewery, “but we were all convinced we would never ever return to Namie.”
On March 11, 2011, Japan’s largest earthquake on record set off a tsunami that flattened much of the northeastern coast of Japan. It is that wall of water, and earthquake, that also led the nuclear facilities at Fukushima Daiichi, located only 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from Namie, into becoming the site of the world’s largest nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.
Nine years later, Suzuki is now making preparations to rebuild his business near his once-razed neighborhood and in the shadows of the still-crippled nuclear facilities. He wants to brew the same local libation made from same local Namie rice his forefathers had used for centuries before him, thanks to the lifting of the evacuation order around his town three years ago and the miracle recovery of his original starter culture.
“It was truly the coincidence of all coincidences that we had the starter culture with us,” said Kenji Suzuki (unrelated), vice director of Fukushima Technology Center.
The starter culture, also called a fermentation starter, is a collection of naturally occurring microorganisms and yeasts that help turn rice into sugar and then, eventually, that sugar into alcohol in a process that ultimately produces Japanese sake.
Called “shubo” in Japanese, or “mother of sake,” Daisuke Suzuki’s culture was specific to his brewery and developed over the centuries since Suzuki Breweries was founded in the mid-19th century to serve the fishermen of the port of Namie with a drink for their weddings, births and other celebrations.
Suzuki of the Fukushima Technology Center, which serves as a creation center of new yeasts and cultures for the local sake community, says Daisuke Suzuki sent his shubo to be analyzed just days before the earthquake.
That in itself was a fluke: The Fukushima Technology Center says they possibly get one starter culture to analyze every 10 years.
However, if Daisuke Suzuki had not sent his culture to the lab away from the path of the tsunami, there would have been nothing left to recreate.
Now the master sake brewer makes regular trips back to Namie, some 160 kilometers (about 100 miles) from the brewery in Yamagata prefecture from where he currently works. With each visit, he collects the local source water that he uses with rice harvested in Namie to produce — with the miracle shubo of his ancestors — a new sake he labelled “Landmark.”
Hoping it will serve as a milestone in the recovery process of his community, Daisuke Suzuki is not taking any risks with safety.
For starters: The groundwater used for this sake is monitored hourly for radiation contaminants. The rice used also has to clear radiation checks far more stringent than required, as it is also the same Namie rice used to feed the local community. Finally, a final radiation check of the filled sake bottles is conducted before sending them off to customers.
But he knows it will be hard to convince everyone of the safety of his product.
“I have every confidence that my sake is undoubtedly safe,” Suzuki said, “but all we can do right now is show people that we are working hard to ensure it is so.”
Ted Lazo, a leading expert on food safety at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), has visited Fukushima over 40 times since 2011 and says that, while the concept of safety can be a personal one based on the risks an individual wants to take, he agrees that locals have gone above and beyond international standards.
“The work that has been done in Japan to validate the levels of non-contamination of the food (there) is really exceptional,” said Lazo, deputy head of a division of the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency.
“The (Japanese) government and also private industry, distributers and even farmers are putting in an enormous amount of work to make sure that the products they are putting on the market are well within the 100 becquerel per kilogram limit and even, in fact, down to the 10-25 (becquerel per kilogram) level,” Lazo said explaining that even the national levels are many times lower than those set for the voluntary Codex Alimentarius of 1000 becquerel set for general foods.
The Codex Alimentarius is a set of international guidelines, standards and rules recognized for food production and food safety around the world. A becquerel is a unit of radioactivity that is used to measure radioactive contamination in food products.
Sary Sasaki, 33, a tourist of Japanese heritage from the Caribbean nation of San Domingo visiting a recent sake tasting event in the prefectural capital of Fukushima city, said she was initially concerned about radiation contamination before she came to this region.
“After I came here … I saw all the work that was done to decontaminate; it was very impressive, “ she said, adding she was taking a couple sake bottles home to one of her uncles who is originally from a nearby township.
One U.S. citizen and local resident, David Benson, 27, who once had been a sommelier in Cincinnati, Ohio, was also at the tasting event.
“The facts are that the area is recovering, and it is totally safe. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes more than facts to convince people,” Benson said.
“The story of this sake, the effort people went through, has the higher potential of changing people’s minds,” Benson said. “And its terroir is the story,” he said, using a French term to describe the taste and flavors that come from the natural environment of a winery, before citing “Landmark” as an earthy and smooth sake.
“It is the perfect way to celebrate the reconstruction of the area,” he said.
However, Namie’s reconstruction has a long way to go before it can be celebrated.
About 1,189 or only 5% of the original 21,434 residents have returned to Namie since the exclusion zone was lifted three years ago. Town officials say lingering worries over the radiation in the area, a lack of large medical facilities and an acute dearth in commercial opportunities still inhibit many from coming back.
Daisuke Suzuki says he is aware that he can’t just return to recreate the past, but hopes his homecoming next year will also invigorate local businesses and convince new businesses take root, too.
“It’s not good enough to just continue what we used to do before the earthquake,” he said. “We will need to put our heads together and create something new.”
Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, JAPAN – 23 December 2019
1. Wide of Namie coastline
2. Wave crashing against wave breakers on the Namie coastline
3. Wide of Namie seaside area devastated by the tsunami in March 2011
4. Closeup shot from within the fields where Daisuke Suzuki’s home and brewery once stood
5. Suzuki walking roughly in the location where his home once stood
6. Suzuki holding a bottle of his ‘Landmark’ sake
7. Soundbite (Japanese): Daisuke Suzuki – Master Sake Brewer
"At an elementary school (where we had been evacuated to) we saw an ambulance from the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital & Atomic-bomb Survivors Hospital, and upon seeing that, nobody dared to say it, but we all knew we would never be able to go back to Namie again. Everyone was really shaken up. It was at that time when, even though my own house and brewery had been swept away, that people started to ask me to preserve something from Namie - to make sake again."
SOURCE: Fukushima Technology Center
Aizu Wakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture – 14 January 2020
8. Shot of tubes containing the starter culture that actually came from Suzuki’s brewery in Namie, as it is stored at the Fukushima High Tech Plaza (Fukushima Technology Center)
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS CONTENT SERVICES
Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture – 27 December 2019
9. Suzuki holding a bottle containing the yeast that was derived from the starter culture that had been found at the Fukushima Technology Center
10. Brewery staff carrying koji mold to be poured into tanks
11. Staff adding koji mold to the tanks for the production of Landmark
12. Soundbite (Japanese): Daisuke Suzuki – Master Sake Brewer
"We started working on getting back the original sake yeast of my brewery using the starter culture that had been found at the Fukushima High Tech Plaza (Fukushima Technology Centre), thanks to the cooperation of a technician there."
Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture – 28 December 2019
13. Wide of sunrise over Nagai, Fukushima Prefecture
14. Wide of exterior of Suzuki’s brewery
Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture – 27 December 2019
15. Suzuki holding some Namie rice in his hand
16. Staff loading Namie rice into a cauldron
17. Wide of cauldron
Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture – 15 December 2019
18. Staff unloading and processing a batch of rice that has just been boiled
Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture – 27 December 2019
19. Suzuki and his brother processing a batch of Namie rice
Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture – 15 December 2019
20. Suzuki preparing the sake starter culture, also called fermentation starter - in a tank with Namie rice
21. Soundbite (Japanese): Daisuke Suzuki – Master Sake Brewer
"Rebuilding one’s life is a daunting task and we need a new approach for our craftsmanship to flourish again, in a way that will be different from the past."
Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, JAPAN – 23 December 2019
22. Suzuki arriving with a van to collect water from Namie to take back to his brewery in neighboring Yamagata prefecture
23. Closeup of Suzuki opening a tap from which Namie water will flow into the tank he brought from Yamagata
24. Namie water filling up the tank
25. Wide of high-tech equipment used to carry out hourly safety checks of the water
Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture – 27 December 2019
26. Various of staff washing a batch of Namie rice in preparation for it to be boiled the following day
27. Soundbite (Japanese): Daisuke Suzuki – Master Sake Brewer
"I’m confident the sake I make is absolutely safe and it’s important to let people know how it’s being made."
Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, JAPAN – 23 December 2019
28. Various of Suzuki standing near a memorial stone with many of the names of the people from Namie who perished in the 2011 disaster inscribed
Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture – 27 December 2019
29. Soundbite (Japanese): Daisuke Suzuki – Master Sake Brewer
“I want the locals to have the chance to drink sake with food from their beloved Namie.”
Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture – 7 February 2020
30. Various of ‘Landmark’ sake being bottled and labelled
Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture – 27 December 2019
31. Soundbite (Japanese): Daisuke Suzuki – Master Sake Brewer
“For a new kind of craftsmanship to grow and flourish, it needs a strong foundation on which you can build upon. With this in mind I chose the name ‘Landmark’ in the hope that it would motivate and inspire."
Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture – 25 January 2020
32. Wide of sake corner at a specialized store selling products from Fukushima Prefecture
33. Staff rearranging bottles from Suzuki’s brewery at the sake corner of a specialized shop selling Fukushima goods
34. Shoppers tasting ‘Landmark’ – Suzuki’s sake
Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, JAPAN – 23 December 2019
35. Soundbite (Japanese): Daisuke Suzuki – Master Sake Brewer
"Eventually I would like for people to come for themselves and get a feel for the things that are unique and famous in this area, the food, the people … And I want them to see the production process as well and understand the feelings of the people involved."
Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture – 25 January 2020
36. Customer tasting ‘Landmark’ sake
Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, JAPAN – 23 December 2019
37. Soundbite (Japanese): Daisuke Suzuki – Master Sake Brewer
"I want my sake to be one that helps people bond together."
Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture – 25 January 2020
38. Closeup of customer holding a bottle of ‘Landmark’
39. Mid shot of Suzuki’s brother and local resident David Benson tasting ‘Landmark’
40. Soundbite (English): David Benson, local resident
“There’s the story that you can feel while you are drinking it. It’s got the best sense of place of any of the sake that I tasted. You can just taste the effort that went into getting the water from Namie and the rice and everything that went into it”.
Nagai, Yamagata Prefecture – 27 December 2019
41. Various of Suzuki at work at his brewery
42. Suzuki with staff and children cleaning up at the end of the day
43. Soundbite (Japanese): Daisuke Suzuki – Master Sake Brewer
“Our crafts need to be the kind that can attract new talent who can eventually take over. And if possible it should be cyclic, for example using the byproducts of our production to create new products thus raising the value of the products of this region."
44. Various of Suzuki looking at some old pictures from Namie
45. Soundbite (Japanese): Daisuke Suzuki – Master Sake Brewer
"By the 10th anniversary, for sure, I will be based in Namie again. That’s the target I set for myself. That’s what the last 9 years have been about for me."
Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, JAPAN – 22 August 2017
SORUCE: Minzokugeinouwo keishousuru Fukushimano Kai
46. Wide of the over 300 years old “Ukedo no Taueodori” festival that has to do with rice harvesting in Namie
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS CONTENT SERVICES
47. Various of Eustoma flowers being grown in Namie
48. Wide of Namie coastline
9 March 2020
