Wednesday Flight #26: Kyuju Pa- 90 and Still Kickin'

WEDNESDAY FLIGHT #26: KYUJU PA- 90 AND STILL KICKIN'

7/22/2026

When sake is made with rice polished to 90%, that means only 10% of the rice grain has been removed. Less polishing means that more of the proteins, fats and amino acids are left in the grain, creating a sake with a richer texture and flavour-- less delicate. Once upon a time this meant rough, but as sake brewing technology has improved

that's CLEARLY no longer the case....let's end Daiginjo dominance!

1. KOSHINOHOMARE 90 YELLOW (2025)

2. KOSHINOHOMARE 90 PINK (2026)

3. KOSHINOHOMARE 90 BLUE (2026) 720ml ($45-49)

Junmai Muroka Nama Genshu

Hara Shuzo

Location: Kashiwazaki City, Niigata prefecture Rice: varies (local), 90% (kakemai), 60% (kojimai) Yeast: 701

Koshinohomare translates to "Pride of Niigata," and has been in operation for 212 years. Their location is a seismically tumultuous one however, and has had the unintended effect of forcing Koshinohomare to rebuild from scratch several times. In 1911, a fire swept thrugh Kashiwazaki; fanned by the powerful sea breeze, the entire brewery and all of its contents were lost. Believing that sake brings happiness to people, the family rebuilt. Nearly a century later, the 2007 Chuetsu-Oki earthquake shook Niigata again at magnitude 7, and again, the flattened brewery was rebuilt. a way though.

this constant rebuilding interrupts the status quo in Kashiwazaki City, leading to a stylistic divergence from the rest of Niigata: more innovative energy, more thoughtful utilization of resources. With its 90 series, Koshinohomare set out to prove that low-polish rice has the same potential as highly polished (say 50%) but with far less waste. Koji, which drives the fermentation pace, is polished to 60%. In addition, brewing with table rice such as this limits the energy and cost and simplifies the supply chain, a benefit for farmers and a safeguard against catastrophic loss of sake rice demand which happened in Covid.

"The fastest shinmai shinshu in the country!" The whole point of Yellow 90, the series' Fall release, is freshness! For Yellow to be bottled and ready by Sake Day 10/1, Hazuki Minori rice is the natural choice as it's ready for harvest in early-mid August before the now-normal September heat spikes. Pink is the Spring release and highlights the flavor of Niigata's Koshiibuki table rice exclusively grown in Niigata. Higher acidity, sweetness, full body and bright spritz allows a study in contrasts: depth and fruity concentration vs. freshness and bubbly levity. Blue is the Summer release, brewed with Mizuho no Kagayaki, a cultivar with flavor on par with the iconic Koshihikari but bred for higher yield and later harvest. It's made with shio koji (white koji, which produces citric acid) for freshness and left a touch sweet (-8 SMV) to balance out the substantial acidity (2.4).

4. TAE NO HANA- CHALLENGE 90 720ml ($43)

Junmai Kimoto Muroka Nama Genshu Moriki Shuzo

Location: Iga, Mie prefecture

Rice: Yamada Nishiki (estate grown, organic), 90% polish Yeast: Ambient/ SMV: +7 / Acidity: 2

In the early 90s, when the kuramoto of Moriki Shuzo fell ill, his daughter found herself at the helm of the family biz. With no experience and no toji, in a time where women were absolutely never brewery owners nor workers, Rumiko sought the advice of a manga artist who had written a story eerily similar to her own. This meeting, and the brewers he subsequently introduced her to, led Rumiko and her husband on a path they are still known for today: junmai-only brewing, with organic rice, often farmed by their own team. Rumiko brewed her first tank of junmai in 1992 and a few years later, commitedd to junmai exclusively. Nearly all work at Moriki Shuzo is done by hand by a tiny team of five. They believe they can make sake better by hand than by machine: the team has repeatedly declined Rumiko's offers for mechanization to make their lives easier-- even avoiding rice blowers. Rumiko's personal motto is "a lot of hard work in the making of the best quality sake she can, means being honest to her customers". Rice is steamed in giant wooden barrel over a wood-fired boiler. Heavy buckets of steamed rice are carried on the team's shoulders--including up wooden planks-- to get the rice into the fermentation tanks. About 25% of their sake production is from their own organically farmed rice.

CHALLENGE 90:

"Challenge 90 came from the idea that there was no need to polish Yamada Nishiki..in order to bring out its full potential. We've been making Challenge 90 since 2003, a year in which we had excess rice and wanted to do something with it. It was around the same time that we started to use Yamada Nishiki and the same time that we started to use a traditional yeast mash (kimoto), meaning that that we were going back to our roots, expressing traditional brewing methods in a modern way." "I think that sake reflects the mindset and character of the person who makes it...Sake-brewing used to be a male-only world, and makers were

forced to follow strict standards in order to keep uniform quality. Women were excluded for a long time, and for that reason, when they started sake-making they weren't boxed into methods and ideas, and were more free to express unconventional ideas."

BONUS: TSUCHIDA SHIN 90

720ml ($61 --1 left)

Junmai Kimoto Muroka Genshu Tsuchida Shuzo

$8

Location: Kawaba, Gunma prefecture Rice: Yamada Nishiki (local), 90% polish Yeast: Ambient / SMV: -14 / Acidity: 3.4/ ABV: 16%

Historical records suggest that this is close to the 90% polish sakes of -300 years ago. Intense, rich, pre-modern style made with local table/ eating rice. Kimoto method + ambient yeast fermented (main mash) without temperature control, leading to a deep golden color and a rich, intense, dank and earthy character. From the nose, notes of roasted sweet potato, burnt sugar, chicken drippings and nukazuke, while the palate expands with notes of baked plum, dried cranberry, hazelnut, caramelized pumpkin and balsamic-onion jam.

The brewery writes that Shin Tsuchida symbolizes the new (Shin) Tsuchida Brewery. "We believe in the function of bacteria, waiting for fermentation, and encouraging it. This is the quintessence of Tsuchida Shuzo's "completely additive-free" ethos. The Shin Tsuchida label design is based on our logo, which is inspired by a Jomon hieroglyphic character for soil. In ancient times, people used to offer hardened soil as an offering to the gods. The Kanji for "Tsuchida" is thus derived from the fact that in the olden days, people offered hardened soil and worshipped it as a god of the land."

SUNFLOWER SAKE

107 SE Washington St. #121, PDX, OR 97214 web: www.sunflowersake.com

IG: @sunflowersake

email: hello@sunflowersake.com

1,2,3. KOSHINOHOMARE

5. TSUCHIDA

Hiroshima Okayama Kagaw [?: Kagawa] Yamaguchi Ehime Fukuoka Кост [?: Kochi] Saga Miyazak [?: Miyazaki] Kagoshima Fukushima Nigats [?: Niigata] Toyama Gutta [?: Gunma] Tochigi Nagano Satama [?: Saitama] Yamanash [?: Yamanashi] Chibe [?: Chiba] Toky [?: Tokyo] Kanagawa Osaka Wakayama Mo [?: illegible]

4. MORIKI

Printed on the sheet as #26; sequenced here by date.