Education is such a vital part of our lives. It doesn’t just enable a livelihood or even basic physical survival (we literally learn from family, friends, and sometimes a social network how to survive). Our souls hum when we’re learning something that enriches us. Education is a spiritual necessity.Do you ever feel like you’re in the doldrums? As if you’re languishing? It’s probably because you aren’t learning something, or at least something that sparks your interest. I know more than a few successful people who actively try to learn something new every day, even if it is small–how to hack a piece of code or tie a new kind of knot. Such conscious discipline can make you feel quite alive. The feeling of growth itself is self-nurturing.What have you learned recently that you actively pursued? We’re not talking about something you ‘had’ to learn at work or perhaps because some frustrating software update forced you to learn a new way to interface with a once-familiar app or technology in your life. What did you devote precious time to discover or enlighten yourself with? What new skill did you slip in your quiver? What’s on the horizon? Most of us probably have more things we want to learn than we have enough life for. There’s no time to lose…The goal of this magazine is to educate–yes, to entertain as well, and also promote our generous sponsors. But education has always been its main mission. Why shouldn’t sake education be every bit as fulfilling as any other topic if this is what interests you? What has always struck us about sake, however, is how much you can learn about Japan. Even with our backgrounds, we learn considerable new things with each issue that we put together. New knowledge is a happy consequence of creating something like a cultural magazine, which becomes a repository. But again, much of the learning we reap owes to the richness of sake as a topic for the way it’s tied to so many aspects of Japan: its economy, agricultural, religion, arts, local customs, and more. There are many larger industries or interests when it comes to Japan, like video games, but few seem to touch as many parts of Japan as sake. It’s a curious thing because sake, on the surface, seems niche.This issue, for whatever reason, turned out to be heavily themed on education. Aomori agriculturalists learned how to develop and cultivate rice that is better suited to the climate challenges of that prefecture. They were no slouches in developing new yeasts, either. We tell the story of one of Aomori’s breweries, Hachinohe Shuzō, where its toji learned his trade in a tight amount of time, nevertheless becoming one of Japan’s best. We hear from Maksim Polkin, a sake educator and advocate in Japan who experienced important educational moments of his own; he learned how much he didn’t know on several occasions, and consequently sought to improve his knowledge, not only for his career, but for the love of sake. We’re on the cusp of a new chapter of sake when it comes to blending, or assemblage, where even brewery presidents are learning the possibilities of their sake from ‘outsiders’ like Régis Camus, who are bringing their extensive hands-on education from the world of champagne. Then you have the lessons of history. Sadly, many of us too often don’t heed these. Japanese-American residents of Japantown, San Francisco, learned through hardship to fight back. Now, their culture is being passed to future generations through learning opportunities provided by the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California–which is getting a little help from sake. This issue closes with some musings on the best kind of sake education (can you guess what it is?).Why do you want to learn about sake? Is it for professional reasons? Maybe you personally like it and learning more enhances your appreciation. That one is often a virtuous circle. Or maybe (some readers have told us this) you don’t care so much for sake but learn a lot about Japan. Who knows, maybe learning more about Japan will convince you to sip more of its national drink. Whatever the reason, thank you for learning with us–thank you for reading.
