Kobe Beef in Kobe

Top 5 experiences of my life: eating Kobe beef in Kobe, Japan with the man who produced it, at his restaurant.

Day 7:

This has most definitely been my favorite day so far. We began our day by visiting a wagyu farm, otherwise known as Kobe Beef. It’s known for its rich taste and high degree of marbling.

We went to Kobe Takami Beef and took a tour from the owner himself. They’ve been raising wagyu for 48 years and you can tell Mr. Takami absolutely loves it. He has 1,300 head with 300 cows used for breeding. His operation is unique because they have all ages of cattle from cow to calf to slaughter weight.

If you’ve seen a dairy before, this farm resembles that. Instead of cows roaming around fields, they are kept in covered barns for their protection and so they can receive lots of attention. Mr. Takami said he takes his best cattle that are used for shows and contests on walks everyday.

Each pregnant cow or heifer is given a belt. This belt will send alerts to the farmer on overall health such as when they eat as well as send an alert when she’s calving. No more waiting up in the barns or running around looking for calves at all hours of the night on a cold wonder day. They know when she’s ready and they can be there if she needs help. Plus, being confined to a barn definitely helps.

They process the meat on the farm and package it before it is shipped out to retailers around the region.

We were able to go to his own restaurant after the tour. BEST MEAL EVER.

I can’t even begin to explain how incredible this meal was. If you’ve never had wagyu, you have to try it. It’s so rich in flavor and unlike any beef I’ve ever had.

We were able to grill it ourselves and it was accompanied with vegetables, salmon, rice, soup, green tea, and finished with ice cream.

This plate of beef was for four of us to share and we ate every single bit.

We then went to a green tea processing plant. 70 farmers are members of the cooperative and bring in their tea to be collectively marketed.

I had no idea how green tea was produced so this was a super cool tour. It’s a lot of steaming, drying, and crushing.

The tea comes in and is separated from foreign material like sticks and stems and then steamed. From there it is crushed and dried. It moves into more crushing with added steam and then drying again. This process repeats until you have a finely ground product that is ready to use.

The softness of the leaves determines the final quality. More soft equates to higher quality, more expensive green tea.

The man who runs the plant has a staff of only 15 people in the busy season and they produce over two tons of fresh tea. He has been a farmer all his life and was excited to take leadership of the plant- while still growing his own tea of course.

We tasted the finished product and then walked down the road to our next stop- a rice plantation.

The owner took over the farm from his father and converted it from a green tea farm to a rice plantation. He operates 55 hectares and also has a polishing plant to turn the unpolished brown rice into the polished, white rice we are familiar with. Some of his rice is even used for Sake production. This rice is bigger and a different breed than table rice.

He showed us the different machines he uses to plant rice and we were all so fascinated with the machine that cuts the rice off of the starter culture and knives it into the ground. In the US we plant rice seed straight into the paddy, but in Japan, they start the rice seed off in trays in a greenhouse and after they have started to grow, they transplant them into the paddies.

The fields are refilled with water several times a week. They have sensors in the field that will send an alert text message to the farmers phone when the water level is low, and automatically trigger more water to be pumped in.

There’s so much cool agricultural technology here. They make use of what little land they have to use it to it’s full advantage.

Oh and here’s a picture of my dinner which was incredible. Gyoza and rice with pork.

Day 8:

If you know me, you’ve probably found out that I think meat science is pretty cool. I guess if this whole Ag Econ thing doesn’t work out I have a fallback plan.

Well, today we went to the Central Kobe Meat Market- and it definitely was pretty cool.

Their meat processing process is completely different than ours. I can’t tell you details or show pictures but I can say that it is much slower and detailed.

We were able to see the process from the carcass hanging on the rail to it being broken down into the primal parts like the loin and rib.

I wish we could’ve seen more, but some is company secret.

The place is set up like the fish market we visited, so much different than America.

They auction off the halves of beef to middlemen and then the middlemen who buy them each have rooms in the market to process what they buy each day. In America, before the animal even arrives at the processing plant, it’s already sold.

From here we switched hotels and stayed the night at a hotel with an onsen. It was supposed to be a relaxing evening and time to wind down before our final day.

If you don’t know what an onsen is, definitely google it. It was very out of my comfort zone, but we all did it.

Basically it’s a natural hot spring mixed with a bathhouse- don’t worry, males and females are completely separated.

Here’s me after the onsen. No shame, it was so comfy!

It was very relaxing and something I’d definitely recommend doing if you’re coming to Japan because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Well… unless you live here.

Our dinner was buffet style but filled with traditional Japanese foods and our beds are on the floor on tatami mats.

It was a very cool experience going super traditional and I’m ready to tackle our final full day in Japan!