Sora Farm

Category: Japan

  • Sora Farm Newsletter-Vol. 68

    Cherry blossoms are famous in Japan but camellias are beautiful at this time of the year. These are Sasanqua Camellias, and the name writes as 山(mountain) 茶(tea) 花(flower). They are popular roadside trees or park trees as both flowers and leaves are alive and beautiful in winter. Leaves can be used as tea. Last week

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  • Sora Farm Newsletter-Vol. 67

    A happy new year! To me, new year comes with sunrise rather than countdown at midnight, especially when I am getting older and it’s getting hard to stay up late… For a few days before new year, people clean their home and cook special dishes, and on New Year’s day, they keep eating and spend

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  • How to make natto

    Making natto is surprisingly easy. Here is how: 4. While waiting beans to cook, dissolve natto culture in water (Use 0.1g or more culture per 100g beans. Use 10ml water per 0.1g culture.) 5. Once beans are cooked, discard cooking water, and pour the natto culture liquid over while beans are still hot. Mix well.

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  • Miso making workshop

    Miso is good for any time of the year but especially nice for autumn and winter. Miso soup, miso hot pot, miso ramen… so warming. Making miso is amazingly easy and rewarding. Join us to learn this healthy and delicious tradition of Japan! In this workshop, you will: Dates and hours: Class size will be

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  • How to make a box with Newspaper

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  • Sora Farm Newsletter-Vol. 41

    Today, July 7th, is “Tanabata” or “Star festival” in Japan. It is based on a legend: Vega, god’s daughter and a weaver, and Altair, a cattle herder, fell in love and got married. They were both hard workers but once they got married, they stopped working and started idling away. God was upset and split

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  • Sora Farm Newsletter-Vol. 22

    Last Friday, we visited two miso factories who keep the same production method since 400 years ago in Okazaki, Aichi. They are Maruya and Kakukyu. The miso they make is called Haccho miso, which is made with soybeans, salt and water only. To make haccho miso, soybeans are steamed and formed into fist-size balls, inoculated

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  • Sora Farm Newsletter – Vol. 21

    Today I visited Daimon Jozo, a family-owned soy sauce brewery with over 100 year history in Nara. Ingredients of soy sauce are: soybeans, wheat berries, salt and water. Soybeans are steamed, mixed with roasted and crushed wheat berries and inoculated with koji spores. It takes 72 hours for koji mold to grow, then it is

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  • Sora Farm Newsletter – Vol. 20

    One of the things I noticed during this trip was that komatsuna is getting more and more popular. When I was a child, it was called “mochina” in our area and we ate it only for new year in mochi soup. Now it is sold year-round everywhere. It was even served as one of the

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  • Sora Farm Newsletter – Vol. 19

    As per Japanese tradition, February 2nd is the day to ward off evil spirit and bring in fortune. At home, people throw roasted soybeans saying, “demons out, fortune in!” Many shrines throw packets of beans to visitors to wish them fortune. I visited a nearby shrine and received a couple of packets. One of them

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