You Can Taste the Four Seasons of Japan at This All-inclusive Culinary Retreat in Kyushu

Steam was wrapped with a copper -colored wood bowl and the sweet scent of fresh rice rose towards us. I tended to taste. The grain was soft, pleasant and bright with rice vinegar. Our host, Prayer Stuart Wolf showed us how to wet our hands with a light shining water and gently shape the rice into small balls that would be made. Rich Sushi.

“It needs to keep its shape so that you can pack it and take it,” he said. “But if you squeeze very hard, rice becomes a gourmet ball.”

After forming, we did a fresh drop Kanuom, Or on every pillow of the rice, the leaf of the snake paper, with a piece of marine brime, is at the top so that we can still see her herbs below it. I hid a bite: soil, herbal, delicate, sweet. It tasted like a spring.

We stood in the mountainous rural areas of Kyusho, the southern part of the four central islands of Japan, a highly climate -Pak retreat, open, open -packed kitchen of the Mercocky salon. It was a march, and I came with my colleague, Leila, in hoping to catch the first buds of Japan’s famous Cherry Blasome season.

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A steady drizzle greeted us a day earlier when we stepped by train in the nearby town of Fukuka. At the early spring, Stuart Wolf told us, Kyusho has a turbulent season. “We are raining too much.

Stuart Wolf has been calm, assured. Ask him a question (I asked a lot) and he has a ready and complete answer. He told me. When she first moved to Japan with her now wife, Hanaco Nakazato, who is a 14th generation ceramist, she did not even speak a single word of the Japanese. Since then, he has not only learned the language, but also the pure traditions of the island – its recipes, techniques and knowledge – and now transmits them to the visitors.

On our five -day retreat, Leila and I joined with five other passengers. We examined for watercases. Cooked a hot pot with wild pigs, marine riders, and anki mushrooms. And went to the field trip to meet the craftsmen, small producers and chefs in their epitheliers and restaurants.

When we woke up at the Karatsu seaside hotel on the first morning, the rain stopped and the sky was a bright blue. To take advantage of, Stuart Wolf decided that, instead of a planned mutation trip, we will take part in it Hanami, Japanese customs to gather under the cherry blasphemous tree and appreciate its permanent beauty. “They are celebrated culturally because they are far away,” he said. “We pack a picnic and sit under cherry flowers, and just deliberately celebrate this feeling.”

After our master class in making Rich Sushi, we tied the rice balls into clean boxes and put them in the baskets as well as cool bottles, tea carfaces, jar jars. Poor (Salt palm palm), and a clutch of the ceramic cup. But found that the flowers were not ready at all. After walking around in search of cherry trees for half an hour, we settled under the tree for a natural place, with small pink buds ignoring Kartisu Bay. The picnic was pleasant, despite the absence of full flowers, and I closed it with a slight blink under the sun.

The next day the rain and the wind returned, so we gathered back to the kitchen for the lesson of the kitchen – the mandatory broth of Japanese cooking, which we built with a coalition in Combo (Japan’s northern island, Hokkido) and Katsuboshi, Or dried bonato flakes (manufactured in Kagoshima south). Stuart Wolf explained that the key to removing the sweetness and sweetness from Combo without bitterness is that the water is to remove the marine before boiling. Katsuobushi It is then added and erected for a minute before pressing.

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Over the next few days, we made most of the rain in the rain so that the fodder for thin poles Entertaining (Harvastil), nose firmly Flood (Brain Fern) that we used to make timpera. We spent a afternoon in an old bookstore in Atushima City, which was tasted differently. Prayer, Or for unhealthy.

Another day we visited Monohano, a vessel studio, under the auspices of Stuart Wolf, Nikazato, located right behind the salon. Its sophisticated, seized pieces like AS, with a black cup and a dual lip and beige cup that contains a cracked, rusty paten, had already presented the salon. Stuart Wolf said, “Aesthetics play such a key role in the dining experience in Japan,” said Stuart Wolf, “when we surrounded the shining things with the white shining goals of Nikazato. Just as the choice of ingredients changes with each season, so does the vessel. “I love how they are at a concert with each other.”

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Our last day, we made another break in the rain, so we walked towards a plot on a roof of the chest of chestnuts for a few minutes where a new salon location was being constructed. I noted, and started dreaming for one of the reasons for returning. During my visit, the salon was placed inside the family house of Nikazato, but last October, a new place opened at the time of the rice harvest season. It features an open kitchen feature that has a large round table, and vegetable garden projects.

Looking back, with the thoughts of Cartisu Bay at the distance, I asked Stuart Wolf whether he had felt any similarity in his guests. She stopped to consider. “I am really surprised by the number of people on Japan’s first journey,” he said. “I thought these would be the people who were coming back and looking for new experiences, but what I realized is that we can present a context and lens in the culture.”

I can confirm this, this is also my first trip to Japan. When we continued to visit the ancient temples of Kyoto and the bright, busy streets of Tokyo, it was in Kyusho – and in particular, on the big round table in the salon kitchen – which made me feel the most connected with Japan’s deep roots.

On four nights Merokashi Salon From $ 3,550 per person, all included.

A version of this story first appeared in the May 2025 issue Travel + leisure Under the heading ”Spring awakening. “