Eat and rest well in the Aichi Highlands

After a detox holiday in the countryside here, Aichikogen-Okumikawa, you’ll return feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.

Ever felt like you need another holiday after your holiday? Well, that won’t be the case if you visit the relaxing highlands in the Aichikogen-Okumikawa region.

Few outsiders know about this well-kept secret, which has abundant natural resources and is steeped in rich history. Located near Nagoya, Aichikogen-Okumikawa is made up of Shinshiro, Toyota and Okazaki cities, Shitara and Toei towns, and Toyone village.

After a historic battle in 1575, the region was ruled by the legendary Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu, who came from what is now the Okazaki city area. Lord Ieyasu helped to unify Japan during a time of civil unrest and, in 1603, was made shogun by Emperor Go-Yozei.

Today, Aichikogen-Okumikawa is an undiscovered gem for sightseeing and outdoor activities, from camping in summer to winter skiing at Mt Chausu, the highest mountain in Aichi Prefecture. Taking a walk in the Dando Highlands also lets you come face to face with fir and maple trees.

If you love the “farm to table” dining movement, you’ll love how you can enjoy “river to table” or “forest to table” cuisine here. Fresh produce includes Horai beef, gohei-mochi rice cakes made with grains from terraced rice fields in Yotsuya, and ayu sweetfish, sometimes caught from Ayutaki Waterfall or Furikusa River. This river fish has a briny sweetness and is best eaten fresh off the charcoal grill, with nothing else but its own natural oils and a mere sprinkling of salt.

The Aichikogen-Okumikawa forests also offer wild game like deer and boar. (Look out for boar instant ramen in supermarkets!) And you can find one of Japan’s softest spring water here, known poetically as kanzui or God’s water. This is used in many local products, including sake and shaved ice.

But, as with many rural towns and villages in Japan, Aichikogen-Okumikawa has an ageing population. Years ago, the younger generations started leaving the countryside to work in the bigger cities. As a result, family farms and plantations were abandoned and ravaged by wild animals.

About four years ago, the local authorities started encouraging young entrepreneurs to revive the Aichikogen-Okumikawa scene. Okinawan Ai Kinjo visited six years ago and stayed on to set up Danon in a 150-year-old house. The 33-year-old hopes her guesthouse can let foreigners learn more about local culture and mingle with the community here.

Others have returned to their hometown to take over and modernise family businesses. Tea farmer Atsushi Umemura, a former civil servant, is the sixth-generation owner of tea house Miyazakien. To attract younger tea drinkers, he grows organic tea and uses it in shaved ice or serves it chilled in sleek wine glasses.

Local hotel scion Naoyoshi Kato, who runs his family’s traditional Hazu Resort ryokan, also started the Scandinavian-chic Hoo! Hoo! bar. The reason? The 44-year-old wanted to introduce something more stylish and sophisticated to his hometown. Both his businesses are a good example of how Aichikogen-Okumikawa marries the old and modern worlds.

Stay at the very traditional Hazu Resort, sleep on futons, enjoy a multi-course kaiseki dinner and relax in one of the onsen baths. Then, in your yukata, make your way to Hoo! Hoo! next door and sip on umeshu whiskey while listening to nature’s symphony, courtesy of crickets and the thrashing Uregawa River. City life, what’s that?

>>A full-filling journey

>>Countryside Charm

>>Gifts from nature

(TEXT Pearlyn Tham Photography Makoto Miura)

Must-eats in Aichikogen-Okumikawa

Symbolic rice and miso come together as one in gohei-mochi; remember to try the region’s signature ayu fish too.

glazed gohei-mochi

In Japanese cuisine, rice is more than a meal staple. Cultivated in Japan for 2,000 years, the grain also has much financial, historical and cultural significance. In the past, rice was used as a currency (or as tax money for farmers). Today, Japan’s most important crop isn’t only eaten during meals; it is used in a myriad products, from sakes to vinegars.

It’s no wonder that there’s the Otaue Matsuri or “rice field planting festival”. Celebrated in spring to mark the start of a new year, this sees the Japanese praying for a successful harvest. In some versions of the festival, seeds are planted in fields while in others, the planting process is acted out. Then, when autumn arrives, harvest festivals are held to give thanks, too.

Japanese rice, a short translucent grain that turns sticky when cooked, is grown in the country’s valleys, terraces and fields, with terraced rice plantations being one of the rarer sights. The Yotsuya Senmaida fields in Aichi Prefecture is famous for having more than 1,000 “steps” and produces the grains for some of the region’s signature rice cakes or gohei-mochi.

If you do visit Aichikogen-Okumikawa, have this as your main meal or as a snack. Resembling a big lollipop, this rice cake is grilled on a skewer and glazed with sesame or miso paste, or even topped with crushed walnuts. One of the traditional shops serving this is Matsuya, which has been around since 1935 and sells

grilled ayu fish skewers

300 gohei-mochi every day on weekends. Owner Yachie Maruyama pounds the rice by hand, uses a secret recipe for her miso paste and grills the cakes over a charcoal fire.

Miso paste is another example of a Japanese diet staple. Once reserved for nobles and monks, miso, which has health benefits like preventing gastric disorders and lowering blood pressure, is made from fermented soybeans. It is now most commonly used in soups that are best paired with steaming hot Japanese rice for a simple yet comforting meal, or on gohei-mochi as a sweet, robust seasoning.

Besides miso-paste gohei-mochi, Aichikogen-Okumikawa is known for the freshwater ayu fish, which can be eaten at restaurants like Chiyohimeso. A skewer is pierced into the fish mouth and through its body before it is cooked over charcoal. Although ayu fish can be stewed in soya sauce and sugar, the locals like it best grilled in its own deliciously briny oils. We can’t agree more.

Meet the Game Changers

Atsushi Umemura, Miyazakien
This dapper 39-year-old looks nothing like a traditional tea farmer. Not surprising since Umemura, the sixth-generation owner of the Miyazakien tea house that has been around since 1820, wants to modernise the art of tea drinking .

How different is Miyazakien from other tea businesses in Japan?
We are unusual in how we see through the entire process, from processing the tea to selling the leaves wholesale and even serving tea on our premises.
In 2006, we also became the first organic tea farm
in Aichi Prefecture.

How do you attract new customers?
As a wholesaler, we usually supply our products to businesses elsewhere but I want people to come visit us directly instead. So, on the second level of our teahouse, we conduct experiential workshops like flower arrangement lessons.

How else are you modernising your tea business?
As a wholesaler, we can’t really change the style of our tea products too much. So, we try and serve tea in different new ways. For example, we sell houjicha flavoured shaved ice. This attracts long queues of customers, and we can sell about 100 bowls in a day. But with the shaved ice, we serve tea too, so customers can taste it and be encouraged to purchase our tea leaves. We also experiment with different ways of drinking tea: serving green tea in teacups with ice chips or in a wine decanter-inspired bottle and in wine glasses.

Naoyoshi Kato, Hazu Resort and Hoo! Hoo!
London-educated Kato runs Hazu Bekkan, a traditional ryokan that is part of the hotel business started by his grandfather 70 years ago. But the 44-year-old has injected his own modern aesthetic into the ultra-hip Hoo! Hoo! bar.

Have you always been in the hospitality business?
My family owns about four hotels in this town including Hazu Bekkan, which has onsens and
13 rooms. Our town has a history of onsens. The interesting thing about Hazu Bekkan is our rooms don’t have a fixed price. It was my father’s idea
35 years ago to let guests decide on how much they want to pay for their rooms.

Tell us more about Hoo! Hoo! and its unusual name.
Owls are common in Aichi Prefecture, so Hoo! Hoo! is named after the sound that they make. Also, the name is a little influenced by our old town name. We did not have a café or a bar in this village, and I was hoping to start something a bit more sophisticated. Hopefully, this will make our town more hip and give foreign visitors a place to hang out at. I man the bar counter myself and we have a guesthouse with five rooms upstairs. Most of the guests at the moment are Japanese though we have hosted Americans and Hong Kongers too.

What do you love most about Aichikogen-Okumikawa?
As a child, I used to swim in Uregawa River (most of the rooms in Hazu Bekkan overlook this river). Now, I love my soul food, which is gohei-mochi (grilled rice cake commonly eaten in the area). Hopefully we can make this place more interesting for visitors by introducing new attractions. I would love to share more about our Japanese festivals and traditions with foreign visitors.

Enjoy Nature all Year Round

From spring to winter, Aichikogen-Okumikawa will put you in a relaxing mood with its
limitless array of natural highlights.

春 – Spring (March to May)

夏 – Summer(June to August)

秋 – Autumn(September to November)

冬 – Winter(December to February)