Once upon a time, all sake was made with locally grown rice. Then came the rise of a particularly reliable strain called Yamada Nishiki, and the scene changed dramatically. Yamada Nishiki, which accounts for nearly 30 percent of Japan's sake rice, is resilient and easily shipped between prefectures. But as sake makers struggle to compete in a contracting domestic market, a growing number of producers are seeking to distinguish themselves through the use and development of local rice varieties. Each year sees an addition to the roughly 80 kinds of rice used in sake making, as the industry concentrates on creating new hybrids and, in some cases, reviving long-vanished strains.

Takaaki Yamauchi, the sixth generation president and master brewer at Fuchu Homare Shuzo in Ishioka City, Ibaraki Prefecture, found the key to the future by looking to the past. More than 20 years ago, when Yamauchi took the reins at his family's 150-year-old brewery, he realized that all the rice used to make the area's sake came from somewhere else.

"I felt it was so strange," he says. "I wanted to use rice from around here because we make jizake — and 'jizake' means 'local sake.' "