Learn by touch, taste with confidence.
Four chapters—Origins, Ingredients, Elements, Flavour— let visitors learn the sake brewing process through their senses, from comparing different types of polished rice, to experiencing 3D-printed artworks representing each sake’s unique botanical palette. Guests arrive at their tasting with new knowledge and vocabulary at their disposal.
Material contrasts like the porous ceramics and warm maple featured across each table bring tasting notes to life through the senses, reinforcing what visitors learn and remember from their visit.
The Talent and the Tema
Everything at Dassai Blue flows from the art of tema – the passion for the process. Most sake brewers in Japan achieve tema through a hierarchical system, with a single sake master, a toji, controlling the entire process. Dassai revolutionized that process, putting the power in every brewer’s hands through a democratic system that allows the team to work and learn from one another. We humanised this democratic model through manga-style portraits by artist Kenshi Hirokane, ensuring that guests leave knowing who makes their sake and what inspires them.
During production hours, visitors can witness the brewers featured in these illustrations in action through windows that look straight into some of the production rooms.
Windows Into the World of Sake Artisans
Since not all visitors to the brewery will be able to visit during production hours, we wanted to ensure anyone could get a glimpse into the diligent process of sake-making. We placed large video projections opposite the windows that look out onto the production rooms, showcasing exclusive footage of the brewery teams moving through the various steps in Dassai Blue’s bespoke sake-making process.
Landscapes of Dassai
A series of murals beginning with ink drawings influenced famed Japanese painter Hokusai anchor the story of Dassai Blue’s evolution from its past in feudal Japanese rice fields, to its present in Yamaguchi Prefecture. A topographic map of the Hudson River (used as Dassai Blue’s water source) evokes the style of a traditional Japanese painting.
