Tokyo is home to ten sake breweries. Nine of them are in Tama. That makes a certain kind of sense once you think about it. Mountains, rivers, and the rhythms of daily life: these conditions for sake have always been here. An evening in Hinohara Village. A softly lit home. Two women, one bottle. Chilled or warmed? Decided on the spot. This is Watanabe’s account of their evenings together, a small story that begins with a single cup.
To begin, we asked ourselves a simple question: why do we drink? For both of us, the answer turned out to be the same. It was never really about the taste. It was about people.
Marco was first drawn to sake through an editor she admired, a woman steeped in Edo culture who carried a quiet kind of iki (stylish, cool, or urbane). Curiosity followed. Curiosity became habit. She traveled across Japan, tasting and learning, until she had become a certified sake sommelier, happily now still deep in it.
My own starting point was different. During my student years, I found myself around stylish older people I met at clubs, people who seemed entirely at ease with themselves, unconcerned with titles or appearances. Back then, it was cocktails and imported beer. Sake felt like a different world. That shifted after I started working. At a sushi counter one evening, watching a senior colleague lift a cup alongside a slice of sashimi, unhurried, unselfconscious. It wasn’t the flavor I remembered. It was the image. I’d like to be like that.
What drew us in was never the drink itself, but the people behind it. Perhaps, in time, we might become that kind of presence for someone else. With that slightly presumptuous thought in mind, we find ourselves here again—two women, drinking in Hinohara.
Watanabe (W): “I feel like more people are choosing low- or no-alcohol drinks lately. And Japanese sake does have a reputation for rough mornings after…”
Marco (M): “Sake sits around 14 percent. If you’re used to something lighter, it can feel strong. When I want something easy, I sometimes mix it with soda.”
W: “With soda? Won’t someone be upset about that?”
M: “At home? Who exactly are you worried about?”
She pours sake into a glass, adds sparkling water without a moment’s hesitation.
W: (takes a sip) “Oh—that’s genuinely good. Light, clean. I’m persuaded.”
M: “A little dilution opens the flavour right up. And everyone has a different point where the alcohol feels comfortable.”
M: “Tolerance varies. So does the concentration where things taste best. Sake has so many quiet dimensions—I want to find every one of them.”
(A pause. She chooses her words carefully.)
M: “I search for them on my tongue, slowly. Which is probably why I get tipsy on a very little amount.” (laughs)
W: “You’re really in pursuit of the taste.”
M: “With whisky or other spirits, the alcohol is so strong the flavour seems to disappear before I can properly explore it. There’s sweetness, there’s aroma, but it feels broad. Less precise.”
(She turns the glass slowly in her hand.)
M: “It evaporates before I’ve finished looking. I sometimes think I’m drinking with my throat more than my tongue.”
W: “Gone before you’ve worked it out.”
M: “Exactly. I’ve been trying to understand why for years. I think I’m finally getting somewhere.”
(A pause. Each reaches for her glass.)
W: “Sake is personal, really. If there’s someone to drink with, that’s already enough. And yet, I can’t help wanting to give it my full attention. Mind and tongue both.”
M: “Yes. That’s exactly it. Whatever you feel is the right answer. It doesn’t need to be anything more than that.”
The answer isn’t found somewhere out there. It rises in the moment. The night in Hinohara has only just begun.
Marco＋Watanabe
Marco, a certified sake sommelier (though she prefers to call herself simply a sake lover), and Watanabe of Me Time. Neither approaches sake as critics or connoisseurs. They drink out of pure affection. Cold or warm, what matters is not the alcohol, but the quiet warmth it brings.
About Hinohara
Hinohara is the only village on the mainland of the Tokyo Metropolis, tucked into the mountains roughly two hours west of the city centre. More than ninety percent of its land is forest. The Akigawa River runs cold and clear through the valley. The village has long been shaped by its relationship with the land. Residents grow yuzu, make soba, and maintain traditions tied to mountain life. Today, Hinohara draws visitors seeking hiking, river activities, and a pace the city has long forgotten, while remaining accessible by bus from Musashi-Itsukaichi Station.
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