We did not come to hot sauce from a festival or a competition. We came from pickling. The rules are older than the recipe.
旬SHUN · the season
A chili is a vegetable.
Capsicum is an ingredient, not a weapon. We farm it, we harvest it at peak, we respect its window. Outside that window, the plant goes to compost — never to the bottle.
地CHI · the ground
One field. One farmer.
Every bottle in every vintage we have ever released comes from the same 0.4 hectares on the south slope of Mt. Akagi. Terroir is not a marketing word for us — it is the only variable we refuse to change.
間MA · the interval
Pause is an ingredient.
Fermentation cannot be rushed and will not be rushed. Our shortest ferment is nine days; our longest is sixty. If a batch is not ready, we do not release it — we wait until next year.
0 2 · 暦 · ALMANAC
One year, one field.
The entire range is made from the same field, harvested at different moments. Character comes from when we pick, not where.
Jan睦月
winter rest
cover crop
Feb如月
seed select
soil turn
Mar弥生
germination
greenhouse
Apr卯月
transplant
mulch
May皐月
bloom
pollinate
Jun水無月
fruit set
stop irrigation
Jul文月
pick · green
pick · straw
lacto start
Aug葉月
pick · red
koji build
Sep長月
pick · deep
lacto 14 d
Oct神無月
aged 60 d
press
Nov霜月
bottling
label + seal
Dec師走
release
fallow
PlantHarvestFermentBottle · Release
0 3 · 瓶 · THE BOTTLES
Three pickings, three sauces.
Each picking captures the chili at a different stage. The longer the fruit stays on the plant, the deeper and slower the heat becomes.
NO. 01 · MIDORI
Midori
緑 · green picking · July
Picked while the skin still has chlorophyll. Tastes like a snapped poblano: grassy, vegetal, bright. Heat arrives on the front palate and leaves within thirty seconds.
Left on the plant until the skins wrinkle. A dark, raisined sweetness with tobacco and dried plum. Heat is low but persistent; it lasts as long as the meal.
Everything happens on the property. No co-packers, no third-party fermentation. Four steps, long intervals, short hands.
一STEP ONE
Harvest by hand
Every chili is picked by one of three people — Masako, her brother Kenji, or Mrs. Tanabe next door. No mechanical harvesters. We pick into flat cedar trays so the fruit never bruises in transit.
Temperature < 26 °C
Time of day pre-noon
Tray depth ≤ 4 cm
Sort bench within 90 min
二STEP TWO
Salt & settle
The sorted fruit is destemmed, halved, and packed in 2.4% sea-salt brine with a splinter of ginger and a single kombu leaf. It then sits at room temperature under a wooden drop-lid (otoshibuta) for its first week.
Sea salt Ishikawa 2.4 %
Kombu Rausu, 1 leaf / 4 kg
Vessel 40-L cedar tub
First week 18–22 °C
三STEP THREE
Ferment slowly
After day seven the tub is moved to the stone cellar and left. Midori comes out after nine days. Aka after twenty-one. Kurenai stays for sixty. The cellar is 15 °C year-round, no electricity, no heating. The walls do the work.
Cellar depth 2.8 m below grade
RH 68–74 %
pH target 3.6 → 4.1
Checks every 3 days
四STEP FOUR
Press & bottle
We press with a hand-cranked screw press and bottle cold. No pasteurization — the finished sauce is shelf-stable because the pH and salt handle the work. Every bottle is numbered against the batch sheet.
Press single pass, 18 bar
Fill temp 8 °C
Seal wax + washi tag
Label hand-numbered
0 5 · 地図 · THE FIELD
Where it all comes from.
A single rectangle of volcanic soil on the south slope of Mt. Akagi. We plant four rows; we harvest three; one is always rotated to fallow.
Akagi S-4
Gunma Prefecture · 群馬県 · south-facing
N 36.56
Fieldvolcanic loam, 0.4 ha
612 m
N 36.55
Cellarstone, 2.8 m below grade
608 m
N 36.57
Cedar drying barnbuilt 1978, restored 2019
614 m
N 36.59
Atelier & bottlingground floor of family home
605 m
N 36.51
RiverKarasu-gawa, for irrigation until June
580 m
0 6 · 桜庭 · THE FIELD WORKER
Masako Sakuraba.
Third generation. Took over the field in 2012. Refuses to irrigate after July. The plants that survive the dry weeks are the ones we bottle.
Masako Sakuraba
FIELD WORKER 073 · THIRD GENERATION · AKAGI S-4
Masako took over the south field from her father in 2012. Before chili, the field grew kabocha and barley; she converted it across two seasons after realising the soil — volcanic, fast-draining, mineral — was the reason her family's pickled vegetables always tasted more alive than anyone else's.
She refuses to irrigate after July. The plants that survive the dry weeks are the ones we bottle. The ones that don't become compost for the next row. "An acre of stressed plants makes more bottles than two acres of comfortable ones," she says. "The plant cannot tell us what it knows any other way."
She is the only person who decides when a batch is released and the only person who can cancel one. In 2021 she cancelled the entire Kurenai release after a single bottle failed her sensory panel. The field produced 1,080 bottles that year; 0 were sold.
"Capsaicin is not the point. The plant has been under stress and its fruit knows it — that is what we are putting in the bottle."
0 7 · 合わせ · PAIRINGS
What goes with what.
Chili is a condiment, not a flex. Small amounts, applied with intention. This is where ours likes to go.
御粥o-kayu · rice porridge
A single teaspoon of Midori, stirred in at the end. Breakfast changes shape.
½ tsp
鱈汁tara-jiru · cod broth
Aka on the surface, after the broth is poured; do not boil the sauce.
1 tsp
豚の角煮buta no kakuni
Kurenai whisked into the braising liquid in the last ten minutes.
1 tbsp
卵かけご飯TKG · raw egg on rice
Three drops of Aka on the yolk. Shōyu optional.
3 drops
ピザNeapolitan pizza
Drizzle Kurenai after baking. Crust becomes the carrier.
2 tbsp
冷奴hiyayakko · chilled silken tofu
A pool of Midori where the shōyu would sit. Scallion, ginger, that's it.
½ tsp
牛タンgyūtan · grilled tongue
Aka, salt, squeeze of yuzu. Forget the dipping sauce.
dabs
バニラアイスvanilla ice cream
Trust us: one drop of Kurenai on good vanilla. It tastes like miso caramel.
1 drop
0 8 · 記録 · BATCH LEDGER
The paperwork.
Every batch is documented. If a bottle leaves the property, its ledger row leaves with it. A scan sits inside the box flap.
AR–2025 · AKA · Batch 02B
Batch sheet — extract
Harvest window
2025·08·04 → 08·20
Fruit lot
AK-S4-R2 / R3 / R4
Brix at harvest
8.8 (mean)
Salt inoc.
Ishikawa 2.4 %
Ferment
21 d @ 22 °C (±1.4)
pH terminal
3.81
Aw
0.92
Yield
1,240 × 250 mL
Rejected
52 bottles (visual off)
Released
1,188 / 1,240
Sensory panel · 14 Oct 2025
Internal tasters, double-blind, 6 panelists
6 / 9 panelists above 8/10
Panel chair
K. Sakuraba
Approved
Yes · signed 15·10·2025
Shelf life
24 months · keep cool
After opening
refrigerate, 90 d
0 9 · 言葉 · WHAT THEY'VE SAID
Kind words from kitchens.
We don't pay for placements. These were printed or said without us asking.
★ DEN · TOKYO · 2 ASAHI STARS
Kurenai is the first hot sauce I have ever put on a French consommé without apologising to it.
ZAIYU HASEGAWA · Chef-owner
★ THE NEW YORKER
A condiment company that behaves like a sake brewery: fewer things, made more slowly, with a shorter line from field to glass.
H. MIURA · The Food Section, Sep 2024
★ POPEYE MAGAZINE
The only hot sauce that tells you what year to drink it in. The answer for Kurenai ’22 is now.
ISSUE 334 · City Boy Pantry
1 0 · 年 · PRIOR VINTAGES
Ten years of bottles.
The field has kept producing; we have kept failing to get it right. A quick record of where we've been.
AR–2016180 bottlesSingle harvest. Everything went to Aka. Too hot, too acid.
AR–2017430 bottlesFirst Midori release; we called it "Green Idea," later renamed.
AR–20180 bottlesTyphoon took the south wall of the cellar. Field intact, crop composted.
AR–20241,620 bottlesWet July, dry August. Our most balanced Aka.
AR–20251,830 bottlesCurrent release. Kurenai in particular is quietly extraordinary.
AR–2026——The field is currently in bloom. We will know in four months.
ARCHIVErequest accessLibrary bottles from 2019 onward; by email, not by web.
1 1 · 答 · QUESTIONS ASKED OFTEN
Things worth saying plainly.
We answer these in every shop visit. Might as well put them here.
How hot is it, in Scoville?
We don't publish that number. It implies heat is a scalar; it isn't. A two-second heat on a silken tofu is not the same as a sixty-second heat on a braised pork belly. We describe each bottle by aftertaste and arrival, not by a single figure.
Do you ship internationally?
Yes, from 3 December through 10 March (before the heat months). Outside that window we hold shipments until autumn — chili ferments keep moving in a warm truck, and we would rather refund than send a bottle that finished its fermentation in Arizona.
Is it shelf-stable?
Yes, unopened, for 24 months at room temperature. Once opened, refrigerate and finish within 90 days. The colour will deepen and the acidity will soften slightly — both are expected.
Can I visit the atelier?
Not during the harvest or ferment months (July through October). From late March to June we host two small open days; please write to us.
Why so little Kurenai?
Because we pick it last, the plant has been under stress for longer, and the yield is simply smaller. We refuse to top it up with earlier fruit. If the yield is zero, we release zero.
What happens to bottles you reject?
They go to the family table, to neighbours, and to the annual end-of-season dinner at our izakaya. They never enter the market. A rejection on our sheet is permanent.
Next is never identical.
Four times a year we write one letter — release notes, weather, what the field did and why. No discounts, no tracking pixels. Paper twice a year, if you ask for it.
4 ISSUES / YR · UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THE LETTER ITSELF · WE DO NOT RENT NAMES
AR–2025 CERTIFIED
EVERY BOTTLE NUMBERED · COLD-FILLED · UNFILTERED
NO SURFACTANTS · NO GUMS · NO CARRAGEENAN
KOJI, LACTOBACILLUS & WILD — NOTHING BOUGHT
茜
FIELD PROVENANCE
AKAGI S-4 · PLOT 073
GUNMA PREFECTURE · 群馬県
GROWN AT 612 METRES · FALLOW ROTATION 1-IN-4
AKANE 茜
A small atelier in Gunma making three condiments from one field, released once a year. We release no merchandise, no t-shirts, no caps. The bottle is the only product.