Making Traditional Salt from Muromachi Period, “Hyakushoan”

Renovated Accommodation to enjoy Self-sufficient Lifestyle

Driving along the shoreline of clear blue sea and mountains with rows of windmills, we spotted an old house built about 100 years ago.
It is the self-sustaining inn “Hyakushoan” introduced to us by Nagayama, ”Toji” of Nagayama Honke Shuzojo. At Hyakushoan, salt is made by a special method “Tenchi Gaeshi” (deep plowing to reverse top with bottom), a tradition dating back to the Muromachi period.
“Hyakushoan” was an old residence that had been abandoned for about 30 years, which the owners spent 2 years to renovate into an accommodation facility. Since the husband loves to travel around Asia, it is filled with artifacts from various parts of Asia. The inn has other places of interest such a room where Chinese tea, the wife’s hobby, can be enjoyed, and a hand built traditional Japanese-style bath called “goemonburo”.

Discovering Traditional Salt Making

The name of the traditional salt is “Farmer’s Salt” which is available for purchase at Hyakushoan.
The mineral content in the salt would not be the same as in the original seawater if seawater is made by merely boiling seawater. To prevent this from happening, the special “mixing” procedure “tenchi gaeshi” is performed, to create salt with the exact same mineral content as the sea water.
The theme of the way of life at Hyakushoan is “to self-produce necessities of life as much as possible”. Surrounded by the things they love, and not being obsessed with money, producing just enough vegetables and rice to eat, and making salt, it seems to be a very natural human lifestyle.

ACCESS

Self-sufficient Accommodation Hyakushoan: 1098-1 YUyamukatsukushimo, Nagato, Yamaguchi; URL http://hyakusho-an.com/