KACHIUYAMANASHI, JAPANABOUT KACHIU
About KACHIU
OUR ROOTS
People, cormorants, and this land.FUEFUKI / ISAWA
An 800-year story,
held in a name.
Fuefuki, Yamanashi. Known as Japan’s leading peach-growing area, this town is crossed by a single river, the Fuefuki.
On summer nights, fires are lit along that river. Instead of riding in a boat, the cormorant master wades into the water and fishes on foot alongside the birds. This is kachiu, “walking cormorant fishing”. Of the eleven places in Japan where cormorant fishing is practised, Isawa is the only one where it is done this way. It has an 800-year history and is designated an Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Fuefuki City.
KACHIU takes its name from this way of fishing. To give a name found nowhere else to gifts made from the bounty of this land — that is where the brand began.
Whoever holds one of our gifts becomes part of the next chapter of an 800-year story. That is what we hope KACHIU can be.
Why Fuefuki
KACHIU was started by Keisuke Masuo (known as Massu), who moved to Fuefuki as a regional co-creation producer. He shares his day-to-day work on Instagram @masumasumasuo7.
Fuefuki is among Japan’s leading producers of peaches and grapes, and every year many people come to stay at Isawa Onsen. Yet there were almost no food souvenirs bearing the name of this hot-spring town.
The fruit was here. The inns were here. The visitors were here. What was missing was something that brought them together in a form you could take home.
KACHIU is our first answer: a name found only here, given to things made from what this land provides, for you to carry home from Fuefuki.
PRESERVING OUR HERITAGE
Giving Back to Culture
For every KACHIU product, a portion of sales goes toward
carrying on a cormorant fishing culture with an 800-year history.