TSUNAN SAKE BREWERY Opens Interactive "Premium Table Rice Sake" Exhibit in Its Metaverse Lunar Brewery
TSUNAN SAKE BREWERY opened new content on October 8, 2026, in Lunar Brewery, its metaverse space, where visitors can learn about Premium Table Rice Sake through hands-on activities. Premium Table Rice Sake is the brewery’s name for premium sake brewed from table rice, the rice people eat at home, rather than from rice bred for sake brewing. Visitors enter from a web browser, view exhibit panels, polish virtual rice grains, and walk through a snowy brewery.
Overview
– Space: Lunar Brewery (TSUNAN SAKE BREWERY metaverse)
– Opened: October 8, 2026
– Access: From a web browser on a computer or smartphone; no app installation needed
– URL:
– Fee: Free
– Platform: metatell, a web metaverse provided by Urth Inc.
– Content: concept exhibit, explanation panels with a rice-polishing simulator, falling snow, and a stamp rally
– Languages: Japanese and English, switchable with an on-screen button
Concept exhibit
Six panels stand in a semicircle in front of visitors as they enter. They cover the difference between sake rice and table rice; how snow becomes water, grows rice and becomes sake; the brewery’s work with restaurants in Japan and abroad; its competition results; and how the brewery defines Premium Table Rice Sake. Clicking a panel enlarges it. When English is selected, the six panels, the explanation panels and the stamp rally signposts all switch to English.
Rice-polishing simulator
A six-page explanation panel opens from a button at the top left of the screen. In its rice-polishing simulator, visitors move a slider to polish grains down from 100% to 35% of their original weight. As a sake rice grain and a table rice grain shrink side by side, the difference in the size of the opaque white core, called shinpaku, becomes visible. The simulator also marks the points below 70%, 60% and 50%, the polishing thresholds for honjozo, ginjo and daiginjo. Sake rice has a large white core, while table rice has only a small one.
Snow and stamp rally
Snow falls continuously in the space, a reference to Tsunan’s heavy winters. Snowmelt supplies the brewery’s water and the water used to grow Uonuma Koshihikari. Visitors can turn the snow off from the explanation panel.
Behind the entrance stand four signposts: Snow, Water, Rice and Sake. Stepping into the gold ring at each one adds a stamp, and collecting all four displays a card that summarizes the idea behind Premium Table Rice Sake.
About GO GRANDCLASS
The brewery’s flagship Premium Table Rice Sake is GO GRANDCLASS Uonuma Koshihikari Edition, a junmai daiginjo made from 100% Uonuma Koshihikari. It won a Gold award in the Junmai Daiginjo category at KURA MASTER 2024 and a Platinum award at the Milano Sake Challenge 2025.
Premium Table Rice Sake website:
Comment
Kengo Suzuki, President and Representative Director, TSUNAN SAKE BREWERY
“Hearing that we brew sake from the rice people eat every day may not make the difference easy to imagine. That is why we created a place where people can learn by doing, by polishing rice and walking through a snowy brewery. Lunar Brewery is where we develop our vision of one day brewing sake on the Moon. We hope people anywhere in the world will drop in and see what a brewery in snow country is working on.”
Next steps
TSUNAN SAKE BREWERY plans to add more content to Lunar Brewery about Premium Table Rice Sake and sake brewing in snow country.
About TSUNAN SAKE BREWERY
TSUNAN SAKE BREWERY is a sake brewery in Tsunan, Nakauonuma District, Niigata Prefecture, one of the snowiest areas in Japan. It brews with natural water from the surrounding mountains, which rise to about 2,000 meters. Under its brand concept “Brew for Future,” it makes traditional sake from locally grown Gohyakumangoku sake rice and Premium Table Rice Sake from locally grown Uonuma Koshihikari.
Website:
