The tradition of the sake glass showing a rather daring image has nothing to do with Japanese folklore.
In certain Chinese or Vietnamese restaurants in France, you have already been offered the digestive in a glass whose bottom reveals a blurry image… Once the glass is filled, a woman or a man is revealed to your eyes. in a very daring pose, in contact with alcohol? This practice of sneakily rinsing the eye has nothing to do with the Japanese tradition of the sake glass. It would even be banned if it existed in restaurants in Japan. Why did she come to us?
If sake refers to an alcoholic drink in Japanese, and the sake glass is the container in which it is served in Japan, the tradition ends there. In Western Asian restaurants, the digestive served wrongly called sake is in fact a very popular spirit in China made from fermented sorghum infused with rose leaves: Mei Kuei Lu Chiew. This Chinese brandy sometimes measuring more than 50 degrees has nothing to do with sake which is an alcoholic drink at 15 degrees resulting from the fermentation of rice, also called nihonshu.
This very delicate drink which is tasted like a Wine is consumed throughout the meal. And it rarely punctuates an ordinary meal: sake marks major life events, whether it is the transition to adulthood or even marriage. The sake glass can be served in very high-end restaurants but certainly not in the local Asian restaurant.
But the misunderstanding does not end there. In Japan, there are many containers equipped with a convex glass lens which, on contact with alcohol, reconstructs a blurred image at the bottom of the glass. These Japanese porcelains reveal true works of art, sometimes representations of shungaa Japanese engraving with an erotic feel, but never more daring.
This misappropriation of Japanese culture actually has its origins in Asian American restaurants. Created from scratch by the Chinese diaspora established in the United States, the sake glass in Asian restaurants was more intended to surprise tourists! And undoubtedly to make people talk…
You will have understood, the tradition of the glass of strong distilled alcohol offered as a digestif in Western Asian restaurants and making customers smile or blush at the sight of the men or women drawn at the bottom of the glass, has nothing to do with the centuries-old Japanese specialty of real sake glass or nihonshu.