When you learn something to new, your interest in it increases and the way you see it changes.  This principle applies to sake, to. Once you learn about sake, you will want to know more about sake labels.  And once you understand sake theory, you will want to know where you can get sake you will like.  Unfortunately, it will  not be easy to determine which shop carries  your favorite sake.  Of course, I have my favorite brands I’d like to recommend to others, but it is about taste, and what I like does not determine what everybody will like.

I would like to talk about developing a knack for discovering good sake, not about the certain brand or shop.   In determining your  favorite sake, there are several points to keep in mind.  First , you need to accumulate knowledge of sake.  Secondly, In might behoove one to find a shop or restaurant that has someone on staff who is enthusiastic and knowledgeable about sake taste and who’s opinion you trust.  If you should someone qualified,  try to become well acquainted with him or her.

To find the shop or restaurant you can trust, review the following checkpoints:

• See if they control the temperature and brightness of the sake shelf.
• Do they keep sake in an individual box or wrapping (not bare bottle) ?
• Does this person at the restaurant or shop knows sake well ?

When it comes to a restaurant, it is absolutely wrong if they leave sake bottles on the counter all the time.  Sake should be kept refrigerated. But even refrigerated, sake is not good if temperature setting is cold that it gives off an icy while vapor like a freezer when it is open.

The best way to store sake in a restaurant is to keep it in a special sake refrigerator in a quiet corner with moderate light.  From my point of view, most of restaurants which knows sake well are toward their customers and don’t usually overcharge for sake.

Bear in mind that your knowledge and whatever restaurants you find should serve as mere points of reference. Above all, trust your sense of taste, and try as many difference types of sake as you can until you find your favorite one.

Using your sake knowledge, examine and compare many kinds of sake available to familiarize yourself with them. This may sound like the long road to personal sake discovery, but in actuality, this is a shortcut.

Major brand sake, locally-brewed sake, rare sake or whatever you drink, try to channel the entirety of your concentration on the first sip you take. In doing this, you will learn what good sake is, and discover your preference in sake taste.

There is, in fact, an easier way for beginnings to tell whether a certain sake is good or not.

That is by mixing sake with water. First, you need prepare two different brand of sake. Any type is fine, but they must be the same grade, for example, both Supreme or both Premium grade sake.

Pour the same amount of sake, each in a separate glass. Add a tablespoon full of water to each of them, then compare the taste. Then, add another tablespoon of water, and taste again. Do this repeatedly. Once you’ve done this several times, the percentage of water goes higher and the sake goes weak. This test will determine which is of greater quality as you will notice that one of the two glasses of sake retains more sake taste (or rice taste), and solid flavor than the other. This quality, as with whiskey, is the mark of good sake. Like with sake, even when little is used, the flavor of quality whiskey does not lend itself to a mixture that weak. Sake or whiskey made the proper way does not lose its flavor even when mixed with water.