September 15, 2021 • 28 mins
Sarika is the founder of Sarika Group, helping people brighten their faces and spirits through Sake and Face Yoga.
Before she became a Sake Yogi, Sarika worked with the United Nations in Asia and Africa on women's empowerment and sustainable urban policy for a decade.
Keeping the same focus on gender and sustainability, Sarika now shares her love for Sake and Face Yoga, with special attention to small-scale, sustainable breweries and women brewers. She also truly enjoys sharing the all-natural, effective face muscles exercises that is Face Yoga!
Her Sarika Group hopes to make a positive impact on the UN's Sustainable Development Goals # 5 (Gender), #12 (Responsible consumption) and #9 Industry/innovation. She has also been using Face Yoga workshops to fundraise for various projects in Vietnam, Taiwan, Poland, and online (including Kopernik), and she volunteers each week at Children's Homes in Warsaw.
Sarika has travelled to over 60 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, and lived in 13 countries on 4 continents. She is a mother of two, and married to an Irishman. She loves to eat and drink.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How Sarika was first introduced to sake (02:22)
- The issues facing the sake industry (05:20)
- The role of the temple priestess (09:28)
- Supporting women brewers (11:15)
- Sarika’s fundamental driving beliefs (16:17)
- An introduction to face yoga (18:58 )
“I’d love it to be known that I contributed something to keep the Sake industry alive .”
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Links mentioned in this episode
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Connect with Sarika:
Sarika also mentions Cowork Crowd:
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Angela Bryant (00:08):
Welcome, I'm Angela Bryant and you're
listening to The Angel RatedShow, where we have inspiring
conversations with the peoplebehind the products and services
most often used by onlinebusiness owners. On the show,
you'll hear how their personalbeliefs and values have
influenced their businesses. Ifyou're an online entrepreneur
who wants to know about theintegrity and impact of the
(00:28):
businesses you're buying from,then this is the show for you.
Hello, and welcome to thisepisode of The Angel Rated Show.
I'm Angela Bryant. And with metoday I have the ever sparkly
Sarika, so Sarika is the founderof Sarika group, helping people
brighten their faces and spiritsthrough sake and face yoga. So
(00:51):
before she became a Sake, SakeYogi, Sarika worked for the
United Nations, in Asia andAfrica, on women's empowerment
and sustainable urban policy.
And before that she did, she didher Master's of Science at LSE,
which London School ofEconomics, and keeping that same
focus on gender andsustainability. So she now
shares her love of sake and faceyoga, with a special attention
on small scale sustainablebreweries and women brewers. And
(01:15):
she really enjoys face yoga. AndI'm sure we're going to talk
about that a lot. And as we gothrough, but to start with, tell
us your story, tell us a bitabout how you came to be doing
what you're doing now.
Sarika (01:30):
First of all, thank you for having me. Thank you for the
introduction. You introduced me.
So that's what I do. Yeah,basically, I help people
brighten their faces and spiritsthrough sake and face yoga.
Angela Bryant (01:45):
So how did you get into that?
Sarika (01:47):
Well, it's actually really simple. It's just because
I really love Well, I discoveredthat I really love sake and face
yoga. So, you know, they're bothlike my most favorite things.
And I'd never thought of it. Imean, I never thought of that as
a business, of course, butsomehow it just organically
(02:09):
evolved. And I'm teaching bothright now.
Angela Bryant (02:14):
So for anyone not watching this video, anyone
listening, explain your sort ofcultural background and what
what connection you have sake.
Sarika (02:22):
Yeah, well, first of all, I'm Japanese. And while
sake is basically our nationaldrink, but the thing is, I never
actually like sake in fact, Ialways felt like it's
disgusting. And I never reallyunderstood what is so you know,
fascinating about sake, likeuntil about 10 years ago. And
(02:47):
just by chance, because kind ofin Japan sake. I mean, it's
changing now, in those times,like, in my, when I was young
sake is like, my grandfather'sdrink. You know, it's like a non
stylish drink. I was neverreally interested in. And, you
(03:07):
know, I would always drink sakeat my grand parents place, and
it tasted pretty bad. So I wasnever interested. But just one
day, just like complete chance,I had this most amazing drink.
And it turned out to be sake andever since somehow, just
(03:28):
organically. I started learningmore about sake, and I was so
blown away that sake wassupposed to taste so delicious,
like this. So that's really howI started. It wasn't, you know,
it wasn't like I had a businessstrategy in place or anything it
just that I was just blown awayHow delicious sake is. And then
(03:51):
I learned little by little that,actually, that the sake industry
in Japan is in a major crisis,that it's actually no because of
different reasons. The domesticconsumption is just going down.
And just in the last, let's say,50 years, it's gone down like
(04:12):
1/3 of the consumption, eventhough it's a national drink. So
yeah, I thought that's atragedy, it's such a delicious,
you know, sake is, of course,like is a drink, but it's To me,
it's like the art. It's reallydrinkable art. So have you had
sake Angela?
Angela Bryant (04:31):
Not for a long, long time, but I have tried it.
So just to be clear, it's afermented rice wine. Is that a
good description?
Sarika (04:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. Yeah, it's a Yeah,exactly. It is it is the same
category as beer and wine. It'snot distilled like vodka.
Because a lot of people thinkit's like, oh, it must be
distilled and 40%, but it'sactually just a tiny bit above
wine. Like that's a 16 percentor so? Yeah. So exactly like you
said, you know it.
Angela Bryant (05:04):
So you you obviously have become passionate
about it and really want topromote it. And so is that
that's obviously the sort of thedrive behind the business that
you've created your Sarika groupis to do that and help do that
education.
Sarika (05:19):
Absolutely. Because I want to, of course, I want to
continue drinking my delicioussake. That's an underlying thing
as well. But really, I was sosurprised after studying about
sake that actually so many, evenJapanese people don't know much
about it. And they don't valuethe sake and that was a little
(05:40):
bit shocking. So yeah, so that'sfor sure. I would love to share
how delicious and beautiful sakeis to Japanese woman. And of
course, people outside of Japantoo. So that's one driver. But
now knowing that the sakeindustry, it's like, every
month, there's a sake brewerygoing bankrupt. And, you know,
(06:02):
these breweries have been goingon for centuries. And so I know
putting all of this together.
Yes, I love drinking sake, Iwould love to share how
delicious it is to my fellowJapanese women. Because Japanese
woman now is changing. But youknow, when I was younger, of
(06:23):
couse people would gravitatetowards wine, champagne, which
is great. Of course, that'sdelicious, too. But we tend to
forget that we have such abeautiful craft right at home.
So that's kind of one driver.
And then others. Of course, ifwe have more consumption, these
sake breweries, you know, sakehas been going on for 2000
(06:47):
years. So it's such a shame ifit's going to collapse like
this. So yeah, definitely wantto see, and we can do something
about the sake industry. So it'slike many reasons. But those are
the main three.
Angela Bryant (07:02):
It feels like it needs that revolution. I think
we've had something similar inthe UK around gin over the last
decade, where lots of newproducers have appeared. And
it's become the in thing andlots of new breweries. So it
feels like sake needs to havethat in Japan.
Sarika (07:19):
Absolutely. The only problem though, in the industry
is that there are no, under thesake law or under Japanese law.
You can't open new breweriesanymore. Yes. So like, yes, it's
there's a huge I mean, there'sso many regulations concerning
sake in Japan. And home brewingis also banned. And there are
(07:42):
many things that are banned thatare completely allowed
everywhere else in the world. Soyeah,
Angela Bryant (07:48):
So once these breweries close down, that's the
end.
Sarika (07:51):
That's the end. There are exceptions, if you can open
a brewery, if it's only forexport, for example, but not in
a normal sense. Yeah. That's theregulations, but we need to find
ways to revive.
Angela Bryant (08:07):
So what do you want to be known for? What do
you want your business to?
legacy? Do you want to createwith what you're doing?
Sarika (08:14):
Yeah, well, legacy is quite grand. But um, well, my
vision, of course, is that thesake in the popularity? I mean,
there's, there is actually I'mconfident that there is actually
a mini mini revival happeningalready compared to let's say,
10 years ago, which is great.
And, yeah, so in terms of what Ihope will happen, um, well,
(08:37):
hopefully that, you know, more,more people like especially even
in within Japan, because at theend of the day, domestic
consumption is the majority ofsake. And actually export sake
export is growing like triplingquadrupling, but it's the
domestic consumption that isreally declining. So you will be
(08:58):
great is actually definitelypeople would wake up and realize
that we have such a delicious,you know, craft right at home,
and we'll start appreciatingmore sake in Japan itself, as
well.
Angela Bryant (09:15):
And tell us more about the you talked about sort
of gender and sustainability.
What's the how's it vary interms of male versus female
makers? And do you usespecifically support female
makers? How does that fit intoyour business?
Sarika (09:28):
Well, first of all, as you can you imagine, the sake
industry is rather heavily maledominated. The reason being that
actually women were not evenallowed inside the brewery for
centuries, because of manyreasons, like religious and
practical reasons, you know,lots of superstitions about how
(09:49):
a woman's menstrual cycle mayinterfere with the ferment rice
fermentation and, of course,other practical reasons, but
it's all heavy work. So So thiskind of background means that
only now there are finally womanbrewers coming into the scene.
And even though the originalsake brewers were actually
(10:10):
woman, like back in thirdcentury, yes, the temple
priestess were brewing sake,that was really the secret
origin of sake. But, you know,somehow it became so
commercialized. And it's trulyit became kind of at one point
how the Japanese government seethat as a tax, a great tax
(10:33):
revenue, so a lot of regulationson the sake industry and how to
scale it. So through that kindof direction, kind of women were
banned for a while. And now, wefinally have great women
brewers. But you know, out ofthe whole right now, there's
about 1200 breweries. And if youcan guess how many women brewers
(10:59):
that there are? There's eachbrewery has one master Brewer
out of 1200.
Angela Bryant (11:05):
So I'm guessing it's a fairly small number is
it? Is it 100 200?
Sarika (11:11):
You're very optimistic.
So it's about well, there arevarying statistics, because
actually, they're they're notreally officially documented,
but it's about roughly 30 to 50.
Women because they're differenthierarchies. Within the brewery,
you can have women presidents oryou can have women brewers, but
(11:33):
those are separate rules. But ifyou think a woman as a very key
part of the brewery, it's reallyminiscule number, if you think
of 1200. And there's about 30 to50, who are really in charge,
like the sake that I have righthere is a woman owned brewery,
for example. But this is reallyrare. So So yes, of course, in
(11:55):
my workshop and my consultancy,I always try to feature the
e sake but the problem. Of couse, that's my intention. But
the problem is that there arelso practical reasons that t
ese women who brew sake are nt available, because most of the
e breweries, these smal breweries, that women a
(12:16):
e playing a key role are famiy owned, really tiny brewerie
, and they don't have marketig budget to go overseas.
o obtaining this outside Japan,I mean, actually, inside Jap
n even is quite difficult. Bt yeah, so that definitely, so
I always try to hide like, thee women who are doing real
y amazing things. And I do havea project called woman in sake
(12:40):
project as well.
Angela Bryant (12:43):
So tell us about that. Is that specifically on
that in that area?
Sarika (12:47):
Exactly? Well, basically, we don't know enough
about these. I mean, well, firstof all, just to give you a
context, you know, Japan is a socalled developed country, but in
terms of gender, genderequality, and ranking, we are
talking like, we're like thebottom 100. Well, like last, you
(13:08):
know, every year there's agender. What is it called a
gender kind of index, you know,that's issued by a lot of
places, issue it the WorldEconomic Forum, etc. So I think
the last 2021, Japan was like121 out of 156 countries. So
(13:28):
we're like the bottom.
Definitely, in terms of gender,really, really low. And it's, in
terms of the background like,like education and health for
women is alright. But we'retalking about economic
participation and politicalparticipation. It's like, very
pathetic. So that's kind of thebackground of how it is. And
(13:53):
then if you take the sakeindustry within, that kind of
overall picture, it isdefinitely a more fair to say
it's pretty male dominated. Soyeah, to give you a context, so
yeah, within that, so I'm tryingto find these great women who
are doing amazing things in thebrewery who may not be really
(14:15):
well known. And so yeah, I'mactually interviewing them just
like how you're interviewingthese women entrepreneurs, and I
have a project a little kind ofpassion project series. That's
not income generating, but Ijust do it because I have fun
and I love it.
Angela Bryant (14:35):
Fantastic, I love the sound of it. And I think
that I've seen I think I've seenone of those and it's all in
Japanese, but with subtitles.
Sarika (14:44):
I found actually some foreign or non Japanese sake
people too you know, so I've gotlike subtitles, yeah.
Angela Bryant (14:55):
I just love I love your energy and I love your
passion for this because it'sjust such a unique and sort of
targeted focus. It's Yeah, itmakes such a good business idea.
I think. So, tell us, I mean, Ithink you you strike me as a
person who's always learning newstuff. So how do you keep How do
you keep learning? How do youkeep keeping up to date with
(15:16):
what's going on in all theseareas?
Sarika (15:19):
Okay, well, the world right now with COVID. There's so
many learning opportunities,right? That was never actually
existing before if you were faraway from Japan, so yeah, I
mean, they're brewery tours, andall kinds of brewery talks and
all these. And of course, youare also doing a lot of
(15:41):
interesting things andparticipating in your project,
like the coworking crowd,there's so many learning
opportunities that I never, youknow, thought about before.
COVID. Before?
Angela Bryant (15:54):
Yeah, so you can do so many more things online
that you couldn't do previously
Sarika (15:58):
I never knew about this online world at all? Until
Angela Bryant (16:02):
and now you're part of it.
Sarika (16:05):
I love it, actually.
Angela Bryant (16:07):
So tell me a bit more about your sort of personal
worldview, or how you live yourlife, what's important to you,
what are your beliefs?
Sarika (16:17):
I guess that would be the same for any human being, I
mean, very fundamental beliefsabout. So I'm really love. And
yeah. I mean, it's really kindof hard to separate my business
and myself in some way. BecauseI'm, what I love is my business.
(16:39):
So it's really hard to separatethese, but of course, I believe
in, especially gender equality,and, yeah, equity. So that's
kind of my long life theme, ifyou could say so because, I
mean, I never even knew the wordgender. But like, since maybe
when I was four or so I'vealready had this question mark,
(17:03):
in my mind, you know, with mygrandparents, whenever they did
something, they would say, Oh,sorry, you're a girl. That's you
shouldn't say that. Or youshouldn't be wearing that color.
So if it's already been kind ofmy theme for, you know, decades
four decades. That's Yeah,that's an ongoing thing. And
(17:24):
that's in the UN. I was workingon gender issues. And I think
once you put the gendersunglasses on, you can never
take it off. It's, you're alwayslooking at it through a gender
perspective. So yeah.
Angela Bryant (17:37):
Yeah, definitely.
I think, yeah, as you said,You've grown up in a culture
where that's it's probably even
Sarika (17:40):
I think I was just always like this. I don't know.
more stark differences and someof the things that I'm used to
in the UK, and that other peoplewill be used to in the US and
other places. So yeah, reallyinteresting to grow up in that
environment, and then go on andwork in that area. I was going
to ask some of my sort of morelighter questions. One of the
(18:01):
questions that I've All I thinkabout is about like, what makes
I think my mom is even more thansmiley to me,
you laugh the most often, butyou laugh every few seconds,
you're like you just arepermanently happy laughing
person. So is that? Have youalways been like that? I'm just
really, I love your I mean, yourenergy and your bubblyness is?
eah, always just spills overSo does that come from some
(18:21):
here? Or is that just a loveof life?
Angela Bryant (18:38):
It's lovely. I love it. And I love speaking to
you. And yeah, seeing you onlinebecause that just having that
sort of level of positive energyis is lovely. So let's talk
about something else, then let'stalk about face yoga. Because
this is the other thing youbring into your business. So
where did you get into that? Andhow does that fit?
Sarika (18:57):
Again It was these two things are complete accidents. I
mean, it was never my intentionto make it a business, let alone
face yoga. When I when I tell myformer UN colleagues that I'm
teaching face yoga they go what,what happened. Face yoga, is
(19:17):
basically a face exercise, andyou know, and unexpectedly I got
into it so much. Because itlooks like a joke really, like
the poses are like, but itactually has such a profound
effect internally. Yeah, I know,it sounds really implausible
(19:39):
when I tell you this, but youknow, our facial expressions and
our mind, I mean, how we feel inour emotions are actually so
connected. That's why when a lotof the times we carry stress on
our faces and when you actuallylet go of the facial stress by
doing face yoga, you actuallyYou let go even your stress in
(20:02):
your mind. So I really, reallystarted loving it so much, but I
never thought of teaching it.
But it was just people keptasking me, can you show us these
poses and just kind of again,organically grew? So it was
never my intention. But yes,it's part of the Sarika group, I
have two pillars. One is faceyoga, and one is sake.
Angela Bryant (20:24):
Can you give us?
Is there a simple descriptiveexercise that you could give us
or something really simple totry?
Sarika (20:33):
Oh, yeah, there are so many options. There's over 70
poses, but so okay, maybe I'llask you like, what, what kind of
pose Would you like to know?
Angela Bryant (20:44):
okay, so I keep all my tension in my, a lot of
tension in my jaw right under myears here, which is hard. If
you're listening, that might bequite hard, I'm pointing but
right at the back of my jaw. Sowhat's a good thing we're
releasing in there.
Sarika (20:57):
Okay, so there's one called the detox pose, which is
kind of uses a great pose forreleasing overall tension, not a
specific area. But it willdefinitely release this tension
here. And it's a great post,because you don't need much of
alignment, some causes you need,like alignment to make sure
you're doing it correctly. Butthis one is super easy, you
(21:20):
can't go wrong. So I'll show youand we can do it together.
Angela Bryant (21:25):
You have to describe it as well describe
what you're doing.
Sarika (21:30):
I hope not to shock you.
So it goes like this, I'mbreathing in through my nose.
And yeah, so what I did isactually I expelled everything
out of my system. And in faceyoga, there's a lot of mind and
(21:51):
the face muscle connection. Soyou want to be visualizing what
you're doing when you're, whenyou're inhaling, you're
visualizing, you're taking inall the great things like all of
the positive things from theuniverse. And when you're
exhaling, in this case, throughyour mouth, you're visualizing
that your stress your worries,and you said you have tension
(22:15):
here, all that tension isexpelling out of your system.
But when you do this, you'regoing to use your tongue. And
your you will actually feel thatyour tongue in your inner
muscle, you know, organs areactually really connected. And
you will feel even your coreengaged when you do this. So
(22:37):
yeah, we'll do it together.
Angela Bryant (22:42):
Okay, let's give it a go.
Sarika (22:44):
So the shoulders are relaxed. And you can, if there's
any residual tension, you cankind of tap your forehead a bit.
Yep. And yet, there's no pointdoing face yoga when you're
feeling tense, we want to makesure because you know, our
posture and our emotions, justlike the facial expressions are
(23:06):
so connected. So if we'rehunched back, we feel sad. And
if we're heart space is open, weactually feel open. So you're,
you want that heart space open.
And now you're going to inhalethrough your nose, taking in all
the good things, and then you'regoing to exhale through your
mouth. And really, really stickyour tongue out like, you really
(23:31):
mean it even more. Do you feelthat your core engaged when you?
Yes. So you really want toexhale everything out? Because
we actually we don't tend toexhale everything when we're
breathing normally, sometimeswe're focusing on inhaling, but
sometimes, you know, we forgetto exhale completely. So one,
(23:56):
exhale everything out. And thisis a great one for tension even
hangovers. Yeah, so that'scalled the detox pose.
Angela Bryant (24:12):
Thank you. That was brilliant. I'm gonna have to
try that more when I'm not onvideo. Well, I'll do a few more
of those later on. So before westart wrapping up, just tell us
a bit about your I mean just, itsounds like you've lived all
over the world. you've traveledeverywhere. You've been to so
many different places. But tellus about some of your favorite
(24:32):
places to have lived and worked.
Sarika (24:35):
You know, I really enjoyed everywhere I've been,
but especially well. Nofavorites. I mean, with with the
UN. I was working in Nairobi,Kenya and Bangkok, Thailand and
Vietnam. So those are really, Ireally feel so close to
especially even now Kenya was solong time ago, but whenever
(24:59):
sometimes I'm awake at 3amthinking about, like the animals
and everything. Yeah, but rightnow I'm in Poland, I opened my
business in Poland with GoogleTranslate. nearly a year ago. So
every place has had it's reallycharming. It's been really
(25:24):
interesting.
Angela Bryant (25:24):
Fantastic. So yeah, I mean, you mentioned your
business, tell us where peoplecan find you and what you've got
that you're offering currentlyin your business.
Sarika (25:34):
So I guess the easiest would be my website, which is
sarikagroup.org. Instagram, issarika.sake Those are two
places, that's easy to find me.
Angela Bryant (25:52):
Fantastic. And we will put those links to those in
the show notes. So you've gotworkshops, on face yoga. You've
got workshops on sake variousdifferent things, courses that
you're creating.
Sarika (26:04):
Yeah. all at the same time. I really, yeah, definitely
everything. But, you know,they're all my babies. I don't
want to drop any of this. Soyes, I'm actually Well, I'm, I'm
an ambassador for a dokudoku,which is the origins of sake for
the sake industry. So we havelots of things happening for the
(26:27):
buduku day coming up, and I willdo a workshop for that as well.
And yes, for face yoga, I have amini training coming up for
women entrepreneurs, and morelater in the year. This is the
course for face yoga fordrinkers or wine lovers. That's
(26:52):
coming up.
Angela Bryant (26:53):
It sounds like such a good combination. Yeah, I
like the idea of doing drinkingthe sake, and then doing the
face yoga the next day to takeaway the effects on your face.
Sounds like a great way of doingit. Well, thank you ever so much
for joining us Sarika. I haveloved talking to you, as I
always do. And yeah, thank youfor being here.
Sarika (27:13):
Thank you Angela.
Really, thank you for having me.
I really love what you're doing.
I mean, I've really admired twoof the things you're doing the
Angel Rated and the coworkingcrowd. I really, really
appreciate that.
Angela Bryant (27:27):
Thank you. So kind of you so kind. So well.
There we go. That's the end ofthis episode. If you want to
read the show notes and get anyof the links to Sarika you can
go to Angel rated.com forwardslash podcast. And if you
enjoyed this episode, please doshare it with your friends and
subscribe to the show and leavea review on your favorite
podcast platform. The AngelRated Show is brought to you by
(27:53):
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list your business free ofcharge at Angel rated.com
Welcome, I'm Angela Bryant and you're
listening to The Angel RatedShow, where we have inspiring
conversations with the peoplebehind the products and services
most often used by onlinebusiness owners. On the show,
you'll hear how their personalbeliefs and values have
influenced their businesses. Ifyou're an online entrepreneur
who wants to know about theintegrity and impact of the
(00:28):
businesses you're buying from,then this is the show for you.
Hello, and welcome to thisepisode of The Angel Rated Show.
I'm Angela Bryant. And with metoday I have the ever sparkly
Sarika, so Sarika is the founderof Sarika group, helping people
brighten their faces and spiritsthrough sake and face yoga. So
(00:51):
before she became a Sake, SakeYogi, Sarika worked for the
United Nations, in Asia andAfrica, on women's empowerment
and sustainable urban policy.
And before that she did, she didher Master's of Science at LSE,
which London School ofEconomics, and keeping that same
focus on gender andsustainability. So she now
shares her love of sake and faceyoga, with a special attention
on small scale sustainablebreweries and women brewers. And
(01:15):
she really enjoys face yoga. AndI'm sure we're going to talk
about that a lot. And as we gothrough, but to start with, tell
us your story, tell us a bitabout how you came to be doing
what you're doing now.
Sarika (01:30):
First of all, thank you for having me. Thank you for the
introduction. You introduced me.
So that's what I do. Yeah,basically, I help people
brighten their faces and spiritsthrough sake and face yoga.
Angela Bryant (01:45):
So how did you get into that?
Sarika (01:47):
Well, it's actually really simple. It's just because
I really love Well, I discoveredthat I really love sake and face
yoga. So, you know, they're bothlike my most favorite things.
And I'd never thought of it. Imean, I never thought of that as
a business, of course, butsomehow it just organically
(02:09):
evolved. And I'm teaching bothright now.
Angela Bryant (02:14):
So for anyone not watching this video, anyone
listening, explain your sort ofcultural background and what
what connection you have sake.
Sarika (02:22):
Yeah, well, first of all, I'm Japanese. And while
sake is basically our nationaldrink, but the thing is, I never
actually like sake in fact, Ialways felt like it's
disgusting. And I never reallyunderstood what is so you know,
fascinating about sake, likeuntil about 10 years ago. And
(02:47):
just by chance, because kind ofin Japan sake. I mean, it's
changing now, in those times,like, in my, when I was young
sake is like, my grandfather'sdrink. You know, it's like a non
stylish drink. I was neverreally interested in. And, you
(03:07):
know, I would always drink sakeat my grand parents place, and
it tasted pretty bad. So I wasnever interested. But just one
day, just like complete chance,I had this most amazing drink.
And it turned out to be sake andever since somehow, just
(03:28):
organically. I started learningmore about sake, and I was so
blown away that sake wassupposed to taste so delicious,
like this. So that's really howI started. It wasn't, you know,
it wasn't like I had a businessstrategy in place or anything it
just that I was just blown awayHow delicious sake is. And then
(03:51):
I learned little by little that,actually, that the sake industry
in Japan is in a major crisis,that it's actually no because of
different reasons. The domesticconsumption is just going down.
And just in the last, let's say,50 years, it's gone down like
(04:12):
1/3 of the consumption, eventhough it's a national drink. So
yeah, I thought that's atragedy, it's such a delicious,
you know, sake is, of course,like is a drink, but it's To me,
it's like the art. It's reallydrinkable art. So have you had
sake Angela?
Angela Bryant (04:31):
Not for a long, long time, but I have tried it.
So just to be clear, it's afermented rice wine. Is that a
good description?
Sarika (04:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. Yeah, it's a Yeah,exactly. It is it is the same
category as beer and wine. It'snot distilled like vodka.
Because a lot of people thinkit's like, oh, it must be
distilled and 40%, but it'sactually just a tiny bit above
wine. Like that's a 16 percentor so? Yeah. So exactly like you
said, you know it.
Angela Bryant (05:04):
So you you obviously have become passionate
about it and really want topromote it. And so is that
that's obviously the sort of thedrive behind the business that
you've created your Sarika groupis to do that and help do that
education.
Sarika (05:19):
Absolutely. Because I want to, of course, I want to
continue drinking my delicioussake. That's an underlying thing
as well. But really, I was sosurprised after studying about
sake that actually so many, evenJapanese people don't know much
about it. And they don't valuethe sake and that was a little
(05:40):
bit shocking. So yeah, so that'sfor sure. I would love to share
how delicious and beautiful sakeis to Japanese woman. And of
course, people outside of Japantoo. So that's one driver. But
now knowing that the sakeindustry, it's like, every
month, there's a sake brewerygoing bankrupt. And, you know,
(06:02):
these breweries have been goingon for centuries. And so I know
putting all of this together.
Yes, I love drinking sake, Iwould love to share how
delicious it is to my fellowJapanese women. Because Japanese
woman now is changing. But youknow, when I was younger, of
(06:23):
couse people would gravitatetowards wine, champagne, which
is great. Of course, that'sdelicious, too. But we tend to
forget that we have such abeautiful craft right at home.
So that's kind of one driver.
And then others. Of course, ifwe have more consumption, these
sake breweries, you know, sakehas been going on for 2000
(06:47):
years. So it's such a shame ifit's going to collapse like
this. So yeah, definitely wantto see, and we can do something
about the sake industry. So it'slike many reasons. But those are
the main three.
Angela Bryant (07:02):
It feels like it needs that revolution. I think
we've had something similar inthe UK around gin over the last
decade, where lots of newproducers have appeared. And
it's become the in thing andlots of new breweries. So it
feels like sake needs to havethat in Japan.
Sarika (07:19):
Absolutely. The only problem though, in the industry
is that there are no, under thesake law or under Japanese law.
You can't open new breweriesanymore. Yes. So like, yes, it's
there's a huge I mean, there'sso many regulations concerning
sake in Japan. And home brewingis also banned. And there are
(07:42):
many things that are banned thatare completely allowed
everywhere else in the world. Soyeah,
Angela Bryant (07:48):
So once these breweries close down, that's the
end.
Sarika (07:51):
That's the end. There are exceptions, if you can open
a brewery, if it's only forexport, for example, but not in
a normal sense. Yeah. That's theregulations, but we need to find
ways to revive.
Angela Bryant (08:07):
So what do you want to be known for? What do
you want your business to?
legacy? Do you want to createwith what you're doing?
Sarika (08:14):
Yeah, well, legacy is quite grand. But um, well, my
vision, of course, is that thesake in the popularity? I mean,
there's, there is actually I'mconfident that there is actually
a mini mini revival happeningalready compared to let's say,
10 years ago, which is great.
And, yeah, so in terms of what Ihope will happen, um, well,
(08:37):
hopefully that, you know, more,more people like especially even
in within Japan, because at theend of the day, domestic
consumption is the majority ofsake. And actually export sake
export is growing like triplingquadrupling, but it's the
domestic consumption that isreally declining. So you will be
(08:58):
great is actually definitelypeople would wake up and realize
that we have such a delicious,you know, craft right at home,
and we'll start appreciatingmore sake in Japan itself, as
well.
Angela Bryant (09:15):
And tell us more about the you talked about sort
of gender and sustainability.
What's the how's it vary interms of male versus female
makers? And do you usespecifically support female
makers? How does that fit intoyour business?
Sarika (09:28):
Well, first of all, as you can you imagine, the sake
industry is rather heavily maledominated. The reason being that
actually women were not evenallowed inside the brewery for
centuries, because of manyreasons, like religious and
practical reasons, you know,lots of superstitions about how
(09:49):
a woman's menstrual cycle mayinterfere with the ferment rice
fermentation and, of course,other practical reasons, but
it's all heavy work. So So thiskind of background means that
only now there are finally womanbrewers coming into the scene.
And even though the originalsake brewers were actually
(10:10):
woman, like back in thirdcentury, yes, the temple
priestess were brewing sake,that was really the secret
origin of sake. But, you know,somehow it became so
commercialized. And it's trulyit became kind of at one point
how the Japanese government seethat as a tax, a great tax
(10:33):
revenue, so a lot of regulationson the sake industry and how to
scale it. So through that kindof direction, kind of women were
banned for a while. And now, wefinally have great women
brewers. But you know, out ofthe whole right now, there's
about 1200 breweries. And if youcan guess how many women brewers
(10:59):
that there are? There's eachbrewery has one master Brewer
out of 1200.
Angela Bryant (11:05):
So I'm guessing it's a fairly small number is
it? Is it 100 200?
Sarika (11:11):
You're very optimistic.
So it's about well, there arevarying statistics, because
actually, they're they're notreally officially documented,
but it's about roughly 30 to 50.
Women because they're differenthierarchies. Within the brewery,
you can have women presidents oryou can have women brewers, but
(11:33):
those are separate rules. But ifyou think a woman as a very key
part of the brewery, it's reallyminiscule number, if you think
of 1200. And there's about 30 to50, who are really in charge,
like the sake that I have righthere is a woman owned brewery,
for example. But this is reallyrare. So So yes, of course, in
(11:55):
my workshop and my consultancy,I always try to feature the
e sake but the problem. Of couse, that's my intention. But
the problem is that there arelso practical reasons that t
ese women who brew sake are nt available, because most of the
e breweries, these smal breweries, that women a
(12:16):
e playing a key role are famiy owned, really tiny brewerie
, and they don't have marketig budget to go overseas.
o obtaining this outside Japan,I mean, actually, inside Jap
n even is quite difficult. Bt yeah, so that definitely, so
I always try to hide like, thee women who are doing real
y amazing things. And I do havea project called woman in sake
(12:40):
project as well.
Angela Bryant (12:43):
So tell us about that. Is that specifically on
that in that area?
Sarika (12:47):
Exactly? Well, basically, we don't know enough
about these. I mean, well, firstof all, just to give you a
context, you know, Japan is a socalled developed country, but in
terms of gender, genderequality, and ranking, we are
talking like, we're like thebottom 100. Well, like last, you
(13:08):
know, every year there's agender. What is it called a
gender kind of index, you know,that's issued by a lot of
places, issue it the WorldEconomic Forum, etc. So I think
the last 2021, Japan was like121 out of 156 countries. So
(13:28):
we're like the bottom.
Definitely, in terms of gender,really, really low. And it's, in
terms of the background like,like education and health for
women is alright. But we'retalking about economic
participation and politicalparticipation. It's like, very
pathetic. So that's kind of thebackground of how it is. And
(13:53):
then if you take the sakeindustry within, that kind of
overall picture, it isdefinitely a more fair to say
it's pretty male dominated. Soyeah, to give you a context, so
yeah, within that, so I'm tryingto find these great women who
are doing amazing things in thebrewery who may not be really
(14:15):
well known. And so yeah, I'mactually interviewing them just
like how you're interviewingthese women entrepreneurs, and I
have a project a little kind ofpassion project series. That's
not income generating, but Ijust do it because I have fun
and I love it.
Angela Bryant (14:35):
Fantastic, I love the sound of it. And I think
that I've seen I think I've seenone of those and it's all in
Japanese, but with subtitles.
Sarika (14:44):
I found actually some foreign or non Japanese sake
people too you know, so I've gotlike subtitles, yeah.
Angela Bryant (14:55):
I just love I love your energy and I love your
passion for this because it'sjust such a unique and sort of
targeted focus. It's Yeah, itmakes such a good business idea.
I think. So, tell us, I mean, Ithink you you strike me as a
person who's always learning newstuff. So how do you keep How do
you keep learning? How do youkeep keeping up to date with
(15:16):
what's going on in all theseareas?
Sarika (15:19):
Okay, well, the world right now with COVID. There's so
many learning opportunities,right? That was never actually
existing before if you were faraway from Japan, so yeah, I
mean, they're brewery tours, andall kinds of brewery talks and
all these. And of course, youare also doing a lot of
(15:41):
interesting things andparticipating in your project,
like the coworking crowd,there's so many learning
opportunities that I never, youknow, thought about before.
COVID. Before?
Angela Bryant (15:54):
Yeah, so you can do so many more things online
that you couldn't do previously
Sarika (15:58):
I never knew about this online world at all? Until
Angela Bryant (16:02):
and now you're part of it.
Sarika (16:05):
I love it, actually.
Angela Bryant (16:07):
So tell me a bit more about your sort of personal
worldview, or how you live yourlife, what's important to you,
what are your beliefs?
Sarika (16:17):
I guess that would be the same for any human being, I
mean, very fundamental beliefsabout. So I'm really love. And
yeah. I mean, it's really kindof hard to separate my business
and myself in some way. BecauseI'm, what I love is my business.
(16:39):
So it's really hard to separatethese, but of course, I believe
in, especially gender equality,and, yeah, equity. So that's
kind of my long life theme, ifyou could say so because, I
mean, I never even knew the wordgender. But like, since maybe
when I was four or so I'vealready had this question mark,
(17:03):
in my mind, you know, with mygrandparents, whenever they did
something, they would say, Oh,sorry, you're a girl. That's you
shouldn't say that. Or youshouldn't be wearing that color.
So if it's already been kind ofmy theme for, you know, decades
four decades. That's Yeah,that's an ongoing thing. And
(17:24):
that's in the UN. I was workingon gender issues. And I think
once you put the gendersunglasses on, you can never
take it off. It's, you're alwayslooking at it through a gender
perspective. So yeah.
Angela Bryant (17:37):
Yeah, definitely.
I think, yeah, as you said,You've grown up in a culture
where that's it's probably even
Sarika (17:40):
I think I was just always like this. I don't know.
more stark differences and someof the things that I'm used to
in the UK, and that other peoplewill be used to in the US and
other places. So yeah, reallyinteresting to grow up in that
environment, and then go on andwork in that area. I was going
to ask some of my sort of morelighter questions. One of the
(18:01):
questions that I've All I thinkabout is about like, what makes
I think my mom is even more thansmiley to me,
you laugh the most often, butyou laugh every few seconds,
you're like you just arepermanently happy laughing
person. So is that? Have youalways been like that? I'm just
really, I love your I mean, yourenergy and your bubblyness is?
eah, always just spills overSo does that come from some
(18:21):
here? Or is that just a loveof life?
Angela Bryant (18:38):
It's lovely. I love it. And I love speaking to
you. And yeah, seeing you onlinebecause that just having that
sort of level of positive energyis is lovely. So let's talk
about something else, then let'stalk about face yoga. Because
this is the other thing youbring into your business. So
where did you get into that? Andhow does that fit?
Sarika (18:57):
Again It was these two things are complete accidents. I
mean, it was never my intentionto make it a business, let alone
face yoga. When I when I tell myformer UN colleagues that I'm
teaching face yoga they go what,what happened. Face yoga, is
(19:17):
basically a face exercise, andyou know, and unexpectedly I got
into it so much. Because itlooks like a joke really, like
the poses are like, but itactually has such a profound
effect internally. Yeah, I know,it sounds really implausible
(19:39):
when I tell you this, but youknow, our facial expressions and
our mind, I mean, how we feel inour emotions are actually so
connected. That's why when a lotof the times we carry stress on
our faces and when you actuallylet go of the facial stress by
doing face yoga, you actuallyYou let go even your stress in
(20:02):
your mind. So I really, reallystarted loving it so much, but I
never thought of teaching it.
But it was just people keptasking me, can you show us these
poses and just kind of again,organically grew? So it was
never my intention. But yes,it's part of the Sarika group, I
have two pillars. One is faceyoga, and one is sake.
Angela Bryant (20:24):
Can you give us?
Is there a simple descriptiveexercise that you could give us
or something really simple totry?
Sarika (20:33):
Oh, yeah, there are so many options. There's over 70
poses, but so okay, maybe I'llask you like, what, what kind of
pose Would you like to know?
Angela Bryant (20:44):
okay, so I keep all my tension in my, a lot of
tension in my jaw right under myears here, which is hard. If
you're listening, that might bequite hard, I'm pointing but
right at the back of my jaw. Sowhat's a good thing we're
releasing in there.
Sarika (20:57):
Okay, so there's one called the detox pose, which is
kind of uses a great pose forreleasing overall tension, not a
specific area. But it willdefinitely release this tension
here. And it's a great post,because you don't need much of
alignment, some causes you need,like alignment to make sure
you're doing it correctly. Butthis one is super easy, you
(21:20):
can't go wrong. So I'll show youand we can do it together.
Angela Bryant (21:25):
You have to describe it as well describe
what you're doing.
Sarika (21:30):
I hope not to shock you.
So it goes like this, I'mbreathing in through my nose.
And yeah, so what I did isactually I expelled everything
out of my system. And in faceyoga, there's a lot of mind and
(21:51):
the face muscle connection. Soyou want to be visualizing what
you're doing when you're, whenyou're inhaling, you're
visualizing, you're taking inall the great things like all of
the positive things from theuniverse. And when you're
exhaling, in this case, throughyour mouth, you're visualizing
that your stress your worries,and you said you have tension
(22:15):
here, all that tension isexpelling out of your system.
But when you do this, you'regoing to use your tongue. And
your you will actually feel thatyour tongue in your inner
muscle, you know, organs areactually really connected. And
you will feel even your coreengaged when you do this. So
(22:37):
yeah, we'll do it together.
Angela Bryant (22:42):
Okay, let's give it a go.
Sarika (22:44):
So the shoulders are relaxed. And you can, if there's
any residual tension, you cankind of tap your forehead a bit.
Yep. And yet, there's no pointdoing face yoga when you're
feeling tense, we want to makesure because you know, our
posture and our emotions, justlike the facial expressions are
(23:06):
so connected. So if we'rehunched back, we feel sad. And
if we're heart space is open, weactually feel open. So you're,
you want that heart space open.
And now you're going to inhalethrough your nose, taking in all
the good things, and then you'regoing to exhale through your
mouth. And really, really stickyour tongue out like, you really
(23:31):
mean it even more. Do you feelthat your core engaged when you?
Yes. So you really want toexhale everything out? Because
we actually we don't tend toexhale everything when we're
breathing normally, sometimeswe're focusing on inhaling, but
sometimes, you know, we forgetto exhale completely. So one,
(23:56):
exhale everything out. And thisis a great one for tension even
hangovers. Yeah, so that'scalled the detox pose.
Angela Bryant (24:12):
Thank you. That was brilliant. I'm gonna have to
try that more when I'm not onvideo. Well, I'll do a few more
of those later on. So before westart wrapping up, just tell us
a bit about your I mean just, itsounds like you've lived all
over the world. you've traveledeverywhere. You've been to so
many different places. But tellus about some of your favorite
(24:32):
places to have lived and worked.
Sarika (24:35):
You know, I really enjoyed everywhere I've been,
but especially well. Nofavorites. I mean, with with the
UN. I was working in Nairobi,Kenya and Bangkok, Thailand and
Vietnam. So those are really, Ireally feel so close to
especially even now Kenya was solong time ago, but whenever
(24:59):
sometimes I'm awake at 3amthinking about, like the animals
and everything. Yeah, but rightnow I'm in Poland, I opened my
business in Poland with GoogleTranslate. nearly a year ago. So
every place has had it's reallycharming. It's been really
(25:24):
interesting.
Angela Bryant (25:24):
Fantastic. So yeah, I mean, you mentioned your
business, tell us where peoplecan find you and what you've got
that you're offering currentlyin your business.
Sarika (25:34):
So I guess the easiest would be my website, which is
sarikagroup.org. Instagram, issarika.sake Those are two
places, that's easy to find me.
Angela Bryant (25:52):
Fantastic. And we will put those links to those in
the show notes. So you've gotworkshops, on face yoga. You've
got workshops on sake variousdifferent things, courses that
you're creating.
Sarika (26:04):
Yeah. all at the same time. I really, yeah, definitely
everything. But, you know,they're all my babies. I don't
want to drop any of this. Soyes, I'm actually Well, I'm, I'm
an ambassador for a dokudoku,which is the origins of sake for
the sake industry. So we havelots of things happening for the
(26:27):
buduku day coming up, and I willdo a workshop for that as well.
And yes, for face yoga, I have amini training coming up for
women entrepreneurs, and morelater in the year. This is the
course for face yoga fordrinkers or wine lovers. That's
(26:52):
coming up.
Angela Bryant (26:53):
It sounds like such a good combination. Yeah, I
like the idea of doing drinkingthe sake, and then doing the
face yoga the next day to takeaway the effects on your face.
Sounds like a great way of doingit. Well, thank you ever so much
for joining us Sarika. I haveloved talking to you, as I
always do. And yeah, thank youfor being here.
Sarika (27:13):
Thank you Angela.
Really, thank you for having me.
I really love what you're doing.
I mean, I've really admired twoof the things you're doing the
Angel Rated and the coworkingcrowd. I really, really
appreciate that.
Angela Bryant (27:27):
Thank you. So kind of you so kind. So well.
There we go. That's the end ofthis episode. If you want to
read the show notes and get anyof the links to Sarika you can
go to Angel rated.com forwardslash podcast. And if you
enjoyed this episode, please doshare it with your friends and
subscribe to the show and leavea review on your favorite
podcast platform. The AngelRated Show is brought to you by
(27:53):
Angel Rated the independentdirectory and review site for
all the products courses andservices used by online business
owners. It's the best place tofind the perfect product for the
next stage of your business orpersonal growth. Learn more and
list your business free ofcharge at Angel rated.com
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