2025 Kiki-Sake (Tasting) Championship was held at Otemachi Place, where ITO Chinatsu and MORI Kanoto, first-year master’s students from the Laboratory of Microbial Ecology (Professor Harumi Nakashima), achieved second place in the University Division, on Saturday, November 15, 2025.
Kiki-Sake Championship is a historic competition that began in 1981 with the aim of promoting and spreading Japanese sake culture. The contest is open to amateur participants, including representatives who have advanced through prefectural preliminaries. Competitors take a written exam on sake-related knowledge and participate in a kikizake (sake tasting) challenge, in which they evaluate the flavor and aroma of seven different types of sake and identify them.
ITO and MORI, who won second place in the University Division, shared the following comments about their experience:
“The event was truly lively and exciting. In the tasting test, we first sampled seven kinds of sake and memorized their flavors. Later, the same samples were presented in a different order, and we had to match them correctly. Since we didn’t have to identify brand names, it was manageable even without specialized knowledge, though we did study history and other topics for the written exam. It was a fun experience that helped us appreciate the depth of Japanese sake, and we encourage everyone to give it a try.”