Experience traditional fermentation culture

Ariura-san of "Kamosuya" serves dishes using fermented foods in a 150 year-old farmhouse.
Her healthy meals utilizes a power of fermented food, which delivers the power to live to every inch of the body.
Making miso, is one of the important tasks in her routine.

Miso is made from soybeans, koji malt and salt. Koji is steamed grain grown by inoculating koji mold (aspergillus).
Koji is added to other ingredients to ferment and turn into various food items. Miso made with malted rice is called rice miso and the one made with malted barley is called barley miso. Koji is also used to make soysauce and sake, and is an important ingredient in the Japanese food culture.

Nowadays, more people buy miso at supermarkets, but in the past, we used to make miso at home.
Each family had a different taste of miso, which enriched the dining table.
Recently, handmade miso has been attracting attention as it's been found that aspergillus oryzae plays an important role of adjusting the intestinal environment, and handmade miso is a great source of fresh aspergillus oryzae.

Ariura-san uses homemade rice malt made from local rice, organic soybeans, and high-quality natural salt to make miso.
They are all carefully selected, and if you taste them, you will know how delicious each ingredient is.

In the workshop, you will first make a fire in the garden of an old farmhouse and boil soybeans slowly.
By doing so, soybeans become naturally sweet.
While beans are boiled, let's watch the fire and enjoy the scenery around you.
We'll also take a break and enjoy Kamosuya's special snacks (Oyaki buns, cookies, etc.) that are perfect catalysts to relieve your daily stress.
When the beans are cooked, it's time for lunch.
Enjoy seasonal dishes such as roasted salmon or pacific cod soaked in sake lees and koji, simmered frozen tofu, which is a local specialty of Chino, homemade miso soup, and brown rice blended with buckwheat.
After the meal, we will mash the soybeans.
Since it is miso made by yourself, you can make it smooth or leave large grains as you like.
Afterwards, mix salt and kouji to mashed beans to finish.
You can take 500 grams of miso home that you made (with an additional fee, you can take miso home out up to 1.5kg. Please ask us for a detail.). After you go back home, please keep it in a refrigerator for about 1 year until it is ready to eat.

*The workshop comes with a Kamosuya special lunch and snacks worth 2,000 yen.