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Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 150 members throughout California. Join today! I like a good challenge. I also really like desserts – so when I came up with the theme, "The Great Dessert Challenge," for this...

When searching for sakes for Women Sake Makers month, I was delighted to learn that Hayashi Honten is owned by a female. Reiko Hayashi is the fifth generation Hayashi to take over the brewery. We have featured Hayashi Honten sakes in the store...

Sake Gumi is our monthly sake subscription service with 150 members throughout California. Join today! This month at Umami Mart, we are waking up to spring. That means many...

This month at Umami Mart, we are featuring our closest collaborators and friends in the restaurant and bar world in the Bay Area. Our month-long celebration coincides with our annual Camino Sake Dinner (this year will be our third!)...

This February at Umami Mart, it's Love Yuzu month. Although we are grateful for our boos and family during the month of love, here at Umami Mart, it's all about loving certain foods and drinks. Thanks to my sister's tree in Berkeley...

It's no secret here at Umami Mart – I am a huge fan of yamahai and kimoto style sakes. So much so that I dedicate one month of Sake Gumi to them every year. Earthy, mushroomy, acidic, and savory are just...

The sakes that I selected for Sake Gumi this month are all premium versions of popular sakes that we carry in Oakland. Each and every bottle on the shelves of our Bottle System in Oakland is hand-selected after tasting and deliberation. It has...

In Japan, animals are everywhere. Besides Hello Kitty and Pikachu, animal imagery adorn temples, shrines, storefronts, crackers and candy. Last names are also fair game for animals. For example, my own last name includes 熊, the character for bear –...

My love for sake can be traced back to a winter night in 2006 when I had my first sip of Shinkame junmai. After that night, I was hooked. Shinkame had revealed to me the potential for sake that I had never known. I wanted to...

I've introduced the idea of warm sake several times in Sake Gumi. People still ask me, "Is warm sake bad? Do people warm sake to mask poor quality?" The short answer is a big fat, "No." Traditionally, sake is enjoyed warm, and that's how it...

Our Sake Gumi program is awesome - a subscription service that delivers two bottles of sake to members every month with pairing and serving suggestions. Sometimes the Sake Gumi selections are so good that our members demand that they go onto...

One of the best parts of being in Sake Gumi is attending our Sake Gumi Social events. We host tastings, dinners, and tours centering around sake education and drinking. To tie in with the past couple months of Sake Gumi (last month, the theme...

Hello Sake Gumi members! I’m happy to be taking over for Yoko this month to talk about pairing sake with my favorite food: noodles! But before that, a little about me - I co-own Umami Mart with Yoko and am a lover of adult beverages....

We're excited to launch our Sake Gumi products - the tokkuri (carafe) and ochoko (sake cups). Enjoy a warm or room temperature junmai sake in these porcelain sakewares, made in Japan.  

Every year, August is a time for reflection. As a Japanese-American (and as a human) it is a time to reflect upon the events of August 6, 1945, when the American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped the world’s first atom...

This month's sakes are all from Yamagata Prefecture, to belatedly celebrate that Yamagata's sakes were granted Geographical Indication (G.I.) last December. So alongside Bordeaux wine, Darjeeling tea and Tuscan olive oil, Yamagata sakes are now recognized as a product that originates from a...

Pulling out balled-up leftover cheeses and one-cup sakes from my fridge is my weeknight, wind-down, go-to ritual after work. Even though some cheeses pair better with certain types of sake, I love nibbling on cheeses with whatever sakes happen to be rolling around in...

Since opening in 2015, Sequoia Sake Brewery has been a gem in the heart of the Bay Area. Located just south of Portrero Hill, founders Noriko Kamei and Jake Myrick use their space as a full-scale sake brewery, as well as...

The first time I tried an Imada Shuzo (brewery) sake was in 2014 when we opened our bottle shop in Oakland. The savory acidity of the Fukucho Forgotton Fortune junmai made my mouth water, and I have been...

Miho Imada of Imada Sake Brewery and me with two of the bottles offered this month for Sake Gumi! May sakes ship today for Sake Gumi, our monthly sake subscription club. If you like what's on deck here, you should