is a ''toji'', or master
sake
Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indee ...
brewer in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. Machida is the first ''toji'' in her family, who have owned the Machida Brewery in
Gunma for over 130 years.
Machida is also an active member of the
Women's Sake Industry Group. Machida's featured sake is the Junmai 60 Wakamizu (純米60 若水).
Her other well-known brand is the Liao Sei.
Her sakes have won seven gold medals at the Annual Japan Sake Awards.
Biography
Machida was born in 1975 in
Maebashi
is the capital city of Gunma Prefecture, in the northern Kantō region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 335,352 in 151,171 households, and a population density of 1100 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . It wa ...
in the
Gunma Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Gunma Prefecture has a population of 1,937,626 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 6,362 km2 (2,456 sq mi). Gunma Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture and Fukushima ...
of northern Japan and raised along with her two sisters at the brewery her family established 1883.
Machida was the oldest daughter in her family of three sisters.
After graduating from the local girl's high school,
Machida attended college in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
, graduating in 1996 with a degree in literature from
Showa Women's University
is a women's private university in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan. The university has undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs and five research institutes. It also contains affiliated schools that span from kindergarten to high school. Aside fr ...
.
After working in an unsatisfying career for three years, in 2000 she decided to go into the family business, Machida Brewery,
and left her life in Tokyo where her next youngest sister is a dancer and her youngest sister is a chef.
Machida's knowledge about brewing sake comes from working with older brewers and studying recipes in books.
Machida faced some
gender discrimination
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primaril ...
when she entered the family business. Brewing sake, while once the job of women, had become completely male dominated.
She was the first
woman ''tōji'' in Gunma Prefecture.
During the time her grandfather ran the brewery, he kept women out of the brewery because they were "seen as dirty, unclean."
When Machida started working in the brewery, she said that at first, her all-male employees refused to listen to her, and deliberately put things in the wrong place.
In addition, some customers refused to buy sake created by a woman.
When she married in 2001, her husband, Akiya, adopted her surname and joined the family business.
In 2006, her brewery won their first gold medal for sake production, the first time a woman had won.
Since the first win, Machida has won seven gold medals at the Annual Japan Sake Awards,
as well as three gold medals in 2008 from the "Excellence Award of the Kanto Shinetsu Tax Bureau Liquor Review Committee", the "National Shuzo Kaikai" prize, and the "Honorable Examination of Gunma Prefecture".
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Machida, Emi
1975 births
Living people
Japanese brewers
People from Maebashi
Showa Women's University alumni
Sake
Businesspeople in brewing