00:00:04 John Daub: Greetings, everybody. Hello and welcome to the amazing area of Niigata called Yuzawa. What you see in front of you is just absolute beautiful wilderness. I'm here at a business that uses a traditional way of refrigeration for a thousand years called yukimuro (snow storage). Y-U-K-I-M-U-R-O. They store the food in here. There's a lot of reasons for it.

00:00:33 John Daub: And over the course of this live stream and a series of live streams, because I don't think you want to hang out for like six hours as we open this up and then start to cook some of the food that's inside of there. But after we open this up, apparently we get a chance to try some of the food that has been aging in this snow refrigerator, which is so cool. And there's so many benefits to having a yukimuro. Like, for example, about 60 years ago, when refrigeration was starting to boom in Japan, new technology. These businesses almost went out of business. I mean, they almost stopped it because what would be the purpose of having this if you have electric refrigeration. But over the last 10 years or so, because of environmental changes, they've been using yukimuro even more because it just uses less electricity, less of a carbon footprint. So the press is here as well.

00:01:37 John Daub: How you doing? So I've come here and they're going to be allowing us to take a look inside this yukimuro. That trailer right there, it looks like a cargo door. 365 days out of the year, it is actually zero degrees inside of there. But the thing about yukimuro that makes it very interesting is that the humidity is quite high, which is different than electric refrigeration. I think they reported about 90% humidity inside of there, which when you're aging food or keeping it cold, actually increases the sugar content in it, giving it a better flavor, a sweeter flavor, which is great for vegetables and even aging meat inside of this yukimuro. I'm kind of excited about this.

00:02:24 John Daub: Now, the appointment to open the door was about 10 minutes ago. So we're kind of waiting for this to happen. It's okay. We're on a different kind of time here in Niigata. But look at this fresh snow. Last night, it snowed about a meter. A couple days ago, it was really warm in Japan. And then it just got cold last night and we were welcomed with this beautiful snow. So thanks for waiting for me. It should start momentarily. Some of the media from the area is here as well to document this, which is pretty cool.

00:03:16 John Daub: I guess they're going to be using this truck to transport the stuff that's been aging inside of this yukimuro. This is so cool. Hey, air to the round is here for hot cocoa. Thanks air and Danny. Hello, Danny. Hope you can get some rest tonight. Danny's been working pretty hard. I didn't expect a lot of other people to be here now before I got on the train. I had to take a PCR test and thankfully that came up negative so I could make this trip. I've never been in a yukimuro before. A lot of them, especially the private businesses, never show it off to the media either.

00:04:33 John Daub: If you like this kind of cultural content, encourage me by clicking that like button. I do appreciate it. Everybody after we open this up and get the food in here a little bit later on in the afternoon, I'm going to live stream eating what's inside of here. Hey, the barters are here. Welcome from Australia. It is kind of cold. I'm not used to this Tokyo was I think it's like 23 degrees Celsius. Now it's like minus two. Tokyo pigeon 4k is here.

00:05:09 John Daub: Oh wow. So they got it. The digging out. Wow, this is just from last night. See what he's digging out. This was not here yesterday. So he had actually prepared for us to go in and now they got to dig it out again. Yeah, the weather is below zero right now, which is a big swing for me because it was 23 degrees Celsius. So about 71 degrees yesterday in Tokyo. I had shorts on yesterday. Look at me now. Digging out. In order for them to open the door, they got to get rid of the snow.

00:06:45 John Daub: Hey, money. Shira-san love your work. Thank you. Think that's from India. Appreciate it. Staying warm here. Oh, they're opening it up. Can I gave me this muffler? How long have you been in there? It's been two months inside. Oh, wait, wait, wait. You can open it. This is the one. They haven't opened this up in two months. It was the last time it was opened up. They really like to bottle up the cold in there. So I'm going to stand right here. So when they open it up and see if I get a blast of cold air. All right, this is pretty exciting. Yeah, hopefully there's no zombies in there coming out. Who knows what's in there? I watch too much TV.

00:08:05 John Daub: I'm not sure what's inside. Food. Osaka again, like this, the yukimuro, the food inside and the things that are refrigerated inside of here, especially fruits and even meats. It increases the amount of sugar through a process called saccharification. I believe is what it's called. And this type of refrigeration, which has been around since the Edo period, but they say for a thousand years is making a comeback because of the environment and trying to cut down on carbon usage. Just no reason to use electricity when you have the snow and it's worked for them for a thousand years. So I figure they might as well do it, right?

00:08:57 John Daub: So I think if you're coming to Japan and you're coming in the winter, if you're in a ski resort area, check and see if they have a yukimuro here in Yuzawa and Niigata. They definitely do. And there are a lot of them and more and more businesses are kind of excited to show them off. But apparently after this. It's a lot of snow. Karate chop. Yoshi. Oh man, that's gonna. Ah, that got inside my glove.

00:09:42 John Daub: Alright, we're calling somebody. I guess I gotta come here for the opening. All right. Guess you're gonna have to wait just a little bit. Someone's supposed to be here. Hi, girl. Hi girl. Hey. It took the doctor. No, she's seen the dog. Okay, I think you must have come. Thank you. Got the. Hey. You got the television. Oh, this is the got the television. Awesome. Hi, guy. Debut. Yeah.

00:10:32 John Daub: So we can do all sorts of things in here. So once again, this is called the yukimuro. They have not opened it up for two months that they said. Okay, looks like something's going to happen. Something's happening. No, it's nothing happening. I'm Penny. I'm from Tokyo. Oh, from Tokyo. I'm sorry. I'm in the middle of a interview. I'm sorry to bother you. Thank you.

00:10:56 John Daub: Also, if you're watching this in playback, there'll be a chapter list. So you can just skip through the waiting and go right into the unvaulting. Or do we say that the opening of the vault that sounds more Geraldo Rivera. It is kind of cold, but I'm getting a little bit more comfortable with it. I didn't know how to dress because again, it was 71 degrees yesterday. Fahrenheit 23 degrees Celsius yesterday in Tokyo. So it's just kind of weird to be out here. It's about 90 minutes by Shinkansen to get from Tokyo. On the Toki double-decker Shinkansen, which I put a couple of videos on the YouTube stories.

00:12:02 John Daub: Where are you watching from? Why don't you write in right now? Because everyone here in Niigata is fascinated from where everyone is watching from. Let's see here. So they're going to write in Texas, Hawaii, Canada, Australia. I love walking dead. Walking dead. Don't tell them that Minnesota Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, Alabama, San Francisco. Yeah, Vietnam, Colorado, Paraguay. Wow, Italy, England, Malaysia, Washington, Maine, who'sすごい London Congo Africa. Yeah, Scotland, Argentina, Romania, Singapore, Saudi Arabia. Whoa. Have you seen not a lot of snow in Saudi Arabia?

00:13:14 John Daub: All right. Now we can start. We've got a global audience. You can see the live chat. Wow. Dominican Republic. Not a lot of snow there, huh? Okay. Let's go. This is awesome. All right. We're about to open it up and I'm going to report to you the smell and if there are any zombies inside. Apparently that's a thing.

00:14:09 John Daub: Oh, it's cold inside. Oh wow. You can smell it. It smells like something that's been sitting in a trailer for two months. It's a hard smell to describe. All right. Cool. Cool. Very nice. This is sake kasu (sake lees). This is sake kasu from Shirataki Shuzo. Sake kasu? Yes, sake kasu. Oh, kasu. Shirataki Shuzo from Yuzawa-machi. It smells good. That's from the sake kasu, the leftover from the sake, which has a really good smell.

00:15:26 John Daub: What's inside of here? It's like a time capsule. It's called Karaisuke miso. It's in our sea urchin, but it's made by three of our parents. Ah, that's miso. It's made by three of us. We'll come today, so three of us. We're seeing what's inside. So that was miso. What do we got here? Oh, sake! This is sake from Shirataki Shuzo. So that's a local sake that's been aging in here. This is Daiginjo from the water in Jose. Oh, Daiginjo. Yes. I want to drink that. This is, as you can see, Jose's raw sake. That's a namazake (raw sake), which is like an unprocessed, bubbling sake. Wow, it's cold, cold, cold. I had to check. It is cold.

00:16:56 John Daub: Is this miso? It's not miso, is it? It's soy sauce. This is soy sauce from the local store. It's made here by a local person named Kifujose. It's locally made soy sauce that's been here in yukimuro. I was like, that's not miso. This is olive oil. I tried adding it to the Kanishi style. I often add olive oil to Kanishi style. I tried adding it to see how it would taste. But it's ice. So it's a bit hard to get it right. So I'm going to use olive oil to make it into ice. Wow! It's interesting! You can take the frozen olive oil, slice it, and then put it on a salad like that. And actually has a really good flavor. Interesting.

00:18:04 John Daub: Green tea. It's not a green tea. It's a black tea. Do you want to try it? This is Murakami tea from Niigata. Oh, Niigata. This is black tea made from here in Niigata. This tea is also Japanese. Does it change the taste of yukimuro? I'll drink it today. Okay. I said, does it taste change because it's in the yukimuro? And he goes, well, we'll try it today and find out.

00:18:55 John Daub: Oh, that's ham. There's some aging of meat in here. Oh, like a Spanish jamon. Kind of a raw ham. So it's been aging here inside of the yukimuro. Very interesting. Oh, there's a lot more to go. So although they didn't use the entire trailer here, what they do have, it seems to be a lot. I wonder if they could probably put in a lot of stuff in here. It feels like treasure. I'm excited to eat and drink some of this stuff here. I'm going to get a chance to do that in another live stream later on this afternoon. Hey, John Kimura's in the house. Thanks for staying warm inside this yukimuro. Staying cold, actually. It's actually chillier inside the trailer than it is outside.

00:20:12 John Daub: What's inside here? All right, there's some. There's some sake inside there as well. What is that there? Miso. Locally produced miso in this box here that's been aging. This is also miso. Look at that. That looks so good. I can't wait to try that. I love homemade miso. Especially here in Niigata. This is Kizujyoto Salmon. That's also miso right there. Locally made miso. I can't smell the miso. I can't smell it, but...

00:21:31 John Daub: Can I go back to the house? Yes, you can. How about cheese? This is cheese. Wow, not fireworks. I thought it was fireworks. Oh, it's Dutch. I tried it and it was cheese. I'm going to eat this later. Yeah, Dutch cheese. It's from 1988. That's pretty exciting. I didn't say it earlier, but they sell soba here. Oh, right. Soba. They sell soba in this box here. Oh. Oh, there's water. So it's transported to... I think they said a soba shop. How cool is that?

00:22:29 John Daub: There's no mac and cheese burger here. Miso burger would be pretty good. That was pretty exciting. Now they're closing up the yukimuro. I should leave something in there. There's no one in there, right? He's checking. Nobody inside. Safety first. That would not be the best place to be inside there. And if there were banging coming from inside there, this would be an episode of Walking Dead. Oh, sake mojito. Okay. So I like that.

00:23:35 John Daub: They're using water here to keep this from freezing up here. So they spray the water here. I know a lot of other towns have this same system. It's very interesting, isn't it? Hi. Everyone's gone to the front. I'm always in the rear. Because stuff always happens if you hang around a little bit longer. Don't want to miss the shot. It's a beautiful shot seen right here of the mountains of Niigata, Yuzawa here. We make our way to the front.

00:24:22 John Daub: So what you just saw there, again, for those that are joining us, is what's called a yukimuro. And it's a traditional way of refrigeration here in Japan that's been going on for, they say, about a thousand years. It was especially particularly useful during the Edo period. Edo period was back in the 17th century starting and going up until the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century. It was like 1868. Oh, here comes the snowplow. Yeah, snowplow! Do it! Do it! Snowplow! It's moving kind of slow. Dude, they should be headbanging like... That's what I would be doing. Snowplow! Okay, that's not as cool as I thought it was going to be. All right, let's get inside.

00:26:18 John Daub: I have to take off my shoes, which has a lot of snow in it now. It's just nice in here. Check it out. There's an irori (sunken hearth fireplace). Which is a fireplace inside the floor. I believe that's what it is. I'm not really sure where that water comes from, the one that's being pumped out. Probably from the regular pipes. I don't think it's recycled water, but there's no shortage of water in this area. This snow melts, creating very plentiful water here.

00:27:12 John Daub: In fact, Suntory, which is the biggest water bottler here in Japan, especially down in the Japanese Alps, they collect a lot of the snow, and that's where they get, they melt it, and that's where they get a lot of their water from. Got a chance to look inside of the Suntory water plant in Daisen, which is the western side of Japan's water source for that company's bottling. A lot of snow, hundreds of tons of snow, thousands. But apparently it's about four to seven tons of snow usually used around the yukimuro, keep it refrigerated, and now they're bringing all of the stuff in, the goodies.

00:28:11 John Daub: It's a little bit warmer inside of here. I came up here this morning from Tokyo to cover this story. They told me, they invited me up here to come and check this out, and it's really interesting. Tomorrow, I'm going to be going to a strawberry farm, and I'm very curious about this because in the winter is this Japanese strawberry season, because in the winter, with the temperatures colder, the strawberries grow slower, which is more costly, but the sugar content is so much higher. So we're going to get a chance to investigate inside of a Japanese dessert strawberry farm tomorrow. Another reason to subscribe to this channel. And then I'll be doing a snow walk, if we have a signal, and take you walking into the snow. Hopefully it's as beautiful with the snow falling as it is today. It's a pretty good adventure for the Only in Japan Go channel.

00:29:02 John Daub: I don't think they have any white strawberries. But who knows? Well, we're going to find out. I know that Tochigi, which is the neighboring prefecture to Niigata, or right next to Gunma, they are very famous for a couple of varieties of white strawberries. So we'll find out. Wow, it's really coming down. John, the snow walker. Actually, a white strawberry in Japan is ripe. It's just a different variety of strawberry. In Europe, they have one variety called pine berries, but that's not what we have here. We have about a dozen or so different varieties of white strawberries, which are really good. And I got a chance to eat a lot of them, living here in Japan. Now the white strawberries that I ate, they almost taste like a pineapple. They're that sweet. There's like a tropical sweetness to it. Basically because they grow so slowly, they're even more intensely sweet. It's almost like eating candy. So we'll get a chance to do that tomorrow. And I believe we might even be going inside of a sake brewery, which is something that people have been asking me a lot about, to go and check out a sake brewery. Niigata is maybe one of the most famous places next to Hyogo Prefecture and Kyoto for Japanese sake. Up in Tohoku, also so famous for their sake.

00:30:49 John Daub: All right, we're here at the media now, and we're waiting for something. Hey, Anthony's a new traveler. Welcome, Anthony. And Mix. Hey, Mix. People from the Philippines and Zod TV, welcome. It's great to have you here. Staying warm. This is the entrance to the place that we're apparently going to be eating something. I think they have to prepare some of this food, but let's look down one more time. Since we're here, there's bottles of booze. This is all aging inside of the yukimuro. Wow, it's so cold. I was fascinated with this olive oil, though. They freeze the olive oil, and then they can slice it when it's frozen like that for salads. And then it just melts. That's a really good idea. I'd never heard of that before. Freezing oil to slice it for cooking or for garnishing dishes.

00:32:03 John Daub: So this has been in there for a while. I think I heard two months, but it might have been longer. Wow, it's really coming down. Arun has been in there for a while. Welcome to the local bank. Frank's provided me with morning beer money. Thank you for that. Actually, on the Shinkansen coming here, there were a few skiers. This is a famous ski area that we're already drinking beer. It was 7:40 in the morning. People start early. Niigata has great craft beer. I'm gonna be checking that out for sure. We'll see what we can find tonight, Frank. I don't know what I'm gonna be doing tonight. I know I do have a, I will be staying here for the night. Okay, they got, okay, something's happening. Something's happening.

00:33:10 John Daub: Oh, they're gonna make soba. Soba tsukuru. Wow. So next up on the hit parade is the making of soba. So we're just gonna stay live as they make soba. So after they start making the soba, I might cut once and then just make another live stream because the title of this was Yukimuro. We've gone into the soba. So I might cut once and go into a new live stream. That would make sense, right? Let's go ask Kureya-san. Wow. See, I don't know what's going on. They're like doing something over here. What's going on? So now they're making soba.

00:34:14 John Daub: So Yukimuro's part is done, right? Yeah, so what we're making here is the soba that was in Yukimuro. Oh, wow. So this is soba that was from inside of the snow, under the snow. And again, it's probably more intense flavor because it was preserved in the snow. And we're gonna get a chance to try this out later. Oh, here's the process. Yeah. Right. It's getting sweet. The sugar content. So you can see, when they made the yukimuro, they would make mounds of snow many centuries ago and then they would put straw over it and make all sorts of layers to try to keep that yukimuro cold, even in the summer. And you would find all year round here in Yuzawa, they've had a way to keep things cold and refrigerated all through Japan. It's fascinating.

00:35:17 John Daub: So what I'm gonna do right now is I'm gonna cut this live stream because we've already opened the vault, the yukimuro. I'm gonna start another live stream in a couple of minutes where we're gonna focus now on soba and food that was inside of the yukimuro. Try that. That's gonna be pretty exciting. So I'll see you back here on this channel, Only in Japan Go, in about five minutes or so.