Chitose-tsuru Tanchotsuru

Perfectly complements Japanese cuisine, enhancing the flavours of traditional dishes with its fresh and refined profile.

This sake offers a delicate balance of smoothness and depth, with a clean and refreshing finish that lingers pleasantly on the palate.

Rice polishing ratio: 65%
Alcohol: 13%
Profile: DRY
SMV: +5
Rice: Non-specified (rice produced in Hokkaido)
Acidity: 1.3
Served: Cold or at room temperature

Chitose-tsuru (Nippon Seishu)
“A thousand years of happiness and lots of good sake”
Chitose-tsuru is the only local sake brewery in Sapporo, the largest city of the island of Hokkaido, northern Japan.The owners of this brewery are Nippon Seishu Co. Ltd., a much larger company that first produced sake in Sapporo in 1872. A Tsuru is a Japanese crane, which is seen as “the bringer of wisdom, hope, a long life and happiness”. It also symbolises honour and loyalty. As it is believed that the crane lives for 1,000 years (chitose in Japanese), the Chitose-tsuru sake brand name might bring a thousand years of happiness and lots of good sake and the Tanchotsuru Junmai we offer is truly special. Toyohira River water, pumped up from 150 meters underground, is used to make it, water which comes from the melting snow of the mountains in southern Sapporo and filters through rock over a period of time. Hokkaido has a cool climate with little humidity, so fermentation is restrained and it is easy to produce sake with a refreshing, dry flavour.

The island’s remote nature led Hokkaido to be settled later than the rest of Japan. Breweries are all less than 150 years old- young by industry standards. Hokkaido isn’t considered a major sake brewing prefecture, but it does have a reputation for quality. The island’s cold weather means traditionally-aged sake matures at a slow pace. The cool temperatures also aid in combating spoilage. The resulting seishu is often mildly aromatic, compact and light, and with a subdued and dry flavour. Hokkaido has more arable land than any other prefecture in Japan. And despite the frigid conditions- they grow a lot of rice. Sapporo, the capital city of the island of Hokkaido, is located on an alluvial fan created by the sand and sediment deposited over the millennia by the Toyohira River. The area has a wealth of underground water resources created when rain and snow that falls on the surface filters through the strata, as well as groundwater that then bubbles back to the surface downstream. Chitose-tsuru, the very first sake brewery in Hokkaido, located its brewery in the heart of downtown Sapporo because of the city’s access to pristine water, which is the lifeblood of sake.