Chatting with Philip Harper (Part 1)

In this episode, Maki and Simone are once again joined by Julian Houseman, and they chat with Philip Harper, from Kinoshita Shuzo in Kyoto Prefecture.

No stranger to fans of sake, Philip is the only non-Japanese Toji (head sake brewer) in Japan. Originally from the UK, Harper was born in 1966 and came to Japan to teach English when he was 22.

Currently in his third decade of brewing, having begun working at a sake brewery back in 1991. He joined, Kinoshita, (producers of Tamagawa sake), where he works as the Toji, in 2007.

Last month, (July 2023) Philip Harper visited Melbourne, Australia for the Australian Sake Festival, held at Queen Victoria Market, where Simone got to meet him in person for the first time.

This was Philip's second time in Australia but first visit to Melbourne and this is just one of the many things we chat to him about in this episode.

Harper was a guest in the Zoom room for the TWTT Project for session #19, back in October 2020.

(correction: in Episode 11 of TWTT The Podcast, I mentioned that the TWTT session with Philip was in 2021).

That session back in 2020 went for a whopping 5 and a half hours... and maybe then some, so it came as no surprise that this podcast chat with Philip saw us deep in conversation for over 2 hours. Rather than cutting a whole lot of content and leaving it on the editing room floor, we have decided to split this conversation into 2 episodes.

We hope you enjoy listening to our conversation with Philip as much as we enjoyed having it.

A huge thank you to our subscribers at Patreon

More information about Taste with the Toji - The Project can be found on our website: https://tastewiththetoji.com/

Music by: Kazuyoshi Sato (Koikawa Shuzo)

Other links from this episode:

https://www.sake-tamagawa.com/en/

https://sake-festival.com.au/melbourne

https://qvm.com.au/

https://supernormal.net.au/

https://sakenet.com.au/

https://www.amazon.com.au/Insiders-Guide-Sake-Philip-Harper/dp/4770020767

https://sake-world.com/