Blog

Shochu Gumi is our quarterly subscription service with 80+ members throughout the country. Join today! We are in peak produce season here in the Bay Area and I am constantlyinspired by all the radiant, bulbous fruit and vegetables that I find at the farmer’smarkets and...

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout the country. Join today! Natsuzakes (summer sakes) typically get released starting in June, and satisfy thirsty sake lovers through the hottest months in...

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout the country. Join today! I am going out on a bit of a limb here, introducing umeshu for Sake Gumi, but Umami Mart has always been about breaking boundaries. And based on the...

I visited Maruyama Fiber Industry who make Nawrap towels in Nara and learned about the traditional weaving technique native to the region. This was a few months back, in March of 2023 and I'm glad to finally be able to blog about it. When I got...

Hi everybody!  We've had a fantastic time with our later summer bar hours - finally, our guests are able to make it by our bar for a quick one, two, or three on their way to dinner or just after. While we were enjoying our supreme reign as the top...

Originally from Oakland, twin sisters Sam (above left) and Ali Blatteis were living across the country from one another when they developed a passion for whisky. After many distillery tours, countless tastings, and their own personal studies, they launched Home Base Spirits together in the Bay Area in...

I'm not sure if it was the pandemic, or having a child, but everything I do these days is last minute. I don't really like making commitments or plans for anything – doctors, dinners, trips – and instead my friends will get regular texts asking if they want to meet...

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout the country. Join today! Greetings Gumi folks, your whisky liaison and friendly neighborhood Dre is taking over Sake Gumi this month! It's the same feeling as when you played Pokemon Red on your...

Shochu Gumi is our quarterly subscription service with 80+ members throughout the country. Join today! Originating over 600 years ago, awamori predates shochu and is the original zenkoji spirit. This refers to a style where the entire moromi (mash) is made of koji...

On my way back to NY, I had a stop over in Madrid for a few hours. Marta and Jose whisked me from the airport to take me to a...

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout the country. Join today! Ah, June – it’s when summer break kicks in, the days are long, and the tank tops come out. And, if you’ve been a part of our little Umamiverse for a while,...

The timing worked out perfectly. I was running an Organic Sake theme in April for Sake Gumi, the monthly sake club I program at the shop. So closing out the last day of the month with the...

Walking into a sake brewery is like walking into someone's home. In the old days, it was customary that the kurabito (brewery workers) all stayed in shared housing at the brewery during the brewing season – people traveled from far and wide from their hometowns...

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout the country. Join today! These days, there has been a bit of buzz about blending for sake, with the emergence of bottles blended by legends of the wine world in Europe and Canada....

Yuichiro Kawahito, president of Kawatsuru Brewery in Kagawa, is the epitome of the word genki – he is full of energy and life. He took on the brewery in 2004 after his father, making him the 6th generation owner. I visited Kawatsuru Brewery on a sunny day...

The rice used to make Uka sake, KR55 Koda Farms® Heirloom Organic Kokuho Rose rice is grown in California’s San Joaquin Valley Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200+ members throughout the country. Join today! Since the start of Sake Gumi in 2015, it has been...

Every March at Umami Mart we celebrate women – from little girls for Girl’s Day on March 3, to our fellow small business owners of Oakland, and of course, for both Sake and Shochu Gumi. It’s a month of reflection and a look into the future for women in the...

At the beginning of September of 2022, I had the opportunity to visit a number of shochu distilleries in Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures. For the Kagoshima portion, president and toji (master distiller) of Yamatozakura Shuzo Tekkan Wakamatsu was kind enough to take me in his car to some unmissable...

  In September 2022, I had the pleasure of visiting a number of shochu distilleries in Kagoshima and Miyazaki. When I was in Kagoshima, Yamatozakura Shuzo's own Tekkan Wakamatsu took me around by car to three can't-miss handmade shochu distilleries. The last leg of the day was...

Hiroko Yokozawa (L), toji at Tsukinowa Shuzo and Nobuko Inaba (R), toji at Inaba Shuzo Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 200 members throughout the country. Join today! It's March which means it's Female Frontrunner's month! Coinciding with International Women's Day and Girl's...