Mansaku no Hana Junmai Daiginjō

The Mansaku no Hana (まんさくの花) Junmai Daiginjō comes with a rich fragrance and a gentle and refreshing taste. It is made from rice produced in Akita Prefecture (Gin no sei, Akita Sake Komachi, Misato Nishiki).


Mansaku no Hana The brand was inspired by the NHK morning drama" Mansaku no Hana" which played in Yokote City, Akita, in 1981. The brand aimed to create a "clean and gentle sake quality", different from the slightly heavier sake of Hinomaru, the main product. It was a challenging label at a time when designs using charcoal characters were unusual. Mansaku no Hana products are available all around the year.

Hinomaru Brewery (日の丸醸造) in Masudamachi, Yokote, Akita Prefecture, was founded in 1689. The brewery is said to have been named after the crest of the Akita feudal lord Satake, which was a five-ribbed fan with a rising sun. In the Taishō era (1912-1926), the annual brewing output reached 5,000 koku , and the brewery was awarded the first-class gold medal at the Great Japan-Britain Exposition. As a result, it flourished as one of the leading breweries in the Tōhoku region. However, the company was forced out of business in 1943 due to the wartime Enterprise Development Order. In 1948, Hinomaru was granted a licence for a basic production volume of 300 koku, reviving a 300-year tradition that has continued to the present day.

Masuda is located in the southeast of the Yokote Basin, in a mountainous and scenic area that has been a granary-producing rice suitable for sake brewing since ancient times. Four wells pump up and use water that is one of the best in the prefecture as subsoil water from the snowy Ou mountain range. Many farmers in the region are keen to produce sake rice. They are actively trying to cultivate rare rice varieties, such as Kame-no-o and Misato Nishiki, which are difficult to grow, or Hoshiakari, which is used by only a few companies in the country, and Hinomaru, which is the only one in the country.

As of 2022, seventeen types of rice are used (Akita Sake Komachi, Kame-no-o, Gin-no-sei, Aki-no-sei, Misanishiki, Miyamanishiki, Hoshiakari, Momota, Hinomaru, Gin-san, Yamada Nishiki, Omachi, Aiyama, Asahi, Watabune 2, Yamadaho and Chihomori), along with sixteen types of yeast (k-9/k-901/k-1001/k-1801/AK-1/UT-1/UT-2/In-house yeast x 5 types/ Akita no.12/ Akita no.15/M310/IYAPU3/).

The brewery is run by Satō Kōji (佐藤公治), who represents the younger generation now at the helm. Forty per cent of employees and those in charge of the brewery are also in their 20s, continuing to evolve and weave the tradition.