Chiba

Sake in Chiba

Chiba Prefecture lies on the east side of the Tokyo metropolitan area and is made up of a peninsula jutting into the Pacific Ocean. Surrounded by the sea on three sides, it has a climate that is warm in winter and cool in summer. The Chiba Sake Brewers Association has 36 member companies (as of April 2024). The association is a group of businesses in the prefecture that make sake as well as shochu and mirin (a sweet seasoning made from rice). In the one year from July 2024 to June 2025, sake was made at 26 places in the prefecture.

Apart from the Boso Hills, where mountains of 200 to 300 m continue, the land of the prefecture is almost flat. In Kururi in Kimitsu City, water from 400 to 600 m underground wells up from free-flowing wells dug with a well-digging technique called “上総掘り.” 上総掘り is a technique for digging wells using combinations of bamboo strips and other materials, and it was born in the Kimitsu area in the middle of the Meiji era. This water has been chosen for the Ministry of the Environment's “100 Remarkable Waters of the Heisei Era” as “Living Water, Kururi,” and in Kururi there are sake breweries that make use of it.

The Chiba Sake Brewers Association presents the breweries in the prefecture in six areas: 北総, 水郷, Choshi, Kujukuri, 上総 and 南総. There are breweries all over the prefecture, including 2 in Choshi City, 2 in 佐原 in Katori City and 2 in Kururi in Kimitsu City. As for rice, the prefecture has made “総の舞,” a variety with qualities suited to sake brewing, an approved variety. The prefecture's table of variety characteristics lists “good suitability for sake brewing” among its strengths.

Brewery map

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