editorial

Words by Jessica Kozuka 
Photographs by Nik van der Giesen 
August 31, 2026
An exclusive seasonal retreat in the mountains of Ishikawa offers a full immersion into rural <a href="https://destinasian.com/travel-guide/japan">Japan</a>’s food and craft culture.
<figure id="attachment_162498" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162498" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-162498" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Wooden-Tableware-Making-Dashi.jpeg" alt="Yamanaka Onsen is known for its delicate wood-turned tableware; Chef Naoya Yamazaki demonstrating how to make classic dashi at Mokkei." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Wooden-Tableware-Making-Dashi.jpeg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Wooden-Tableware-Making-Dashi-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Wooden-Tableware-Making-Dashi-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Wooden-Tableware-Making-Dashi-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162498" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Yamanaka Onsen is known for its delicate wood-turned tableware; Chef Naoya Yamazaki demonstrating how to make classic dashi at Mokkei, Hannah Kirshner’s kitchen studio and community space.</figcaption></figure>
The kuromoji spicebush is putting out new leaves, swallows are dancing midair semaphores of love, and sansho shrubs are in the fleeting period of bloom that precedes the emergence of their nose-tingling peppercorns. The signs of spring are everywhere in Yamanaka Onsen, a mountain town in Honshu’s Ishikawa Prefecture known as much for its hot springs as for its woodworking and lacquerware.
For a girl raised in the deserts of Arizona and now living in <a href="https://destinasian.com/travel-guide/japan/tokyo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tokyo</a>, these seasonal cues might as well be a foreign language. The vocabulary of the forest in spring is full of enigmatic but appealing lushness. Words like yamafuji (wild wisteria), keyaki (Japanese zelkova), and shippo-goke (a furry moss coming in green and thick on the riverbanks) roll off locals’ tongues like incantations, evocative but arcane. I’m being inducted into these mysteries at Foodways &amp; Craftways, a new biannual retreat during which guests spend four days exploring the traditional food culture of Yamanaka.
The retreat is hosted by American food writer Hannah Kirshner and Kohei and Manami Yamada, proprietors of the venerable ryokan <a href="https://www.hana-mura.com/english/?DestinAsian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hanamurasaki</a>. All share a palpable love for the way of life in this small town and have leveraged their deep ties to the community to connect participants with worlds normally inaccessible to outsiders.
“I want to convey local Japanese culture through experiences, so our ryokan is like a showcase,” explains Kohei, whose family has run Hanamurasaki for six generations. “We try to blend traditional and modern culture through the power of design.”
Indeed, he and Manami have reimagined Hanamurasaki in recent years, infusing the 25-room property with contemporary art and sophistication while transforming the lobby into an upscale tearoom. Yet the inn’s longstanding connection to the community remains, with tea trays, cups, and other custom accoutrements produced by local lacquer artisans, woodturners, and ceramicists.
<figure id="attachment_162496" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162496" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-162496" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Mokkei-Community-Space-Hannah-Kirshner.jpeg" alt="Mokkei occupies a century-old house in Yamanaka Onsen; Hannah Kirshner named Mokkei after a wooden rooster." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Mokkei-Community-Space-Hannah-Kirshner.jpeg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Mokkei-Community-Space-Hannah-Kirshner-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Mokkei-Community-Space-Hannah-Kirshner-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Mokkei-Community-Space-Hannah-Kirshner-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162496" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Mokkei occupies a century-old house in Yamanaka Onsen; Hannah Kirshner named the space after a wooden rooster.</figcaption></figure>
While Hanamurasaki is the home base for the retreat, most of the workshops are held at <a href="https://www.mokkei-yamanaka.com/?DestinAsian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mokkei</a>, a 100-year-old house Kirshner has renovated into an open-air kitchen and community space. Kirshner first came to Yamanaka in 2016 for a two-month apprenticeship at a local sake bar called Engawa, but found herself returning again and again. Eventually, she was spending as much time in Yamanaka as in Brooklyn and decided to make it a second home. Along the way, she wrote Water, Wood, &amp; Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town, an ode to the craftspeople and foodways of this rural corner of the country.
“In the process of writing about the community, I became part of it,” she says. “I’ve created the outdoor kitchen to have a space to do things with the local community, to bring people together to cook, but also to be able to welcome people from other places and create a bridge.”
The first evening is spent with Fumiaki Matsuura of Matsuura Shuzo, Yamanaka’s sole sake brewery. He is the 14th-generation owner, but the first to hold the title of toji, or master brewer. Matsuura produces only junmai styles, which rely on the aromas and flavors of natural fermentation rather than added alcohol or sugar. His Harry Potter glasses and shy smile impart an air of boyish enthusiasm as he explains the workings of koji, the humble mold at the root of all Japanese flavor. Its ability to convert rice starches into fermentable sugars makes sake, soy sauce, miso, mirin, and a host of other staples possible.
Our group of six dutifully follows the technical explanation, complete with photos of microscopic koji blooms, but perks up noticeably for the practical component: a fermentation-focused kaiseki dinner paired with Matsuura’s sakes. The alchemical power of these microbes is immediately clear, as Matsuura spends 10 minutes carefully venting the first bottle so it doesn’t explode. As the room fills with the sweet lactic aroma of unpasteurized sake, he tells us this is the last surviving bottle made with an heirloom yeast he’s since retired. It produced excellent flavors but so much effervescence that bottling it safely became a challenge.
That sake bomb is a pulse-lifting start to a meal that includes unusual ingredients like ishiru (a funky fish sauce from the nearby Noto Peninsula) and irizake (an ancient condiment that predates soy sauce, made by reducing bonito flakes and pickled plums in sake). The standout dish is pufferfish roe fermented in rice bran. Paired with the acidity of cherry tomatoes and a rich cream cheese, it has the complex umami of an aged taleggio. Buoyed by Matsuura’s brews and enthusiastic commentary on the food, everyone is fast friends by dessert.
<figure id="attachment_162495" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162495" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-162495" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Hannah-Kirshner-Kohei-Yamada-in-Forest-Junmai-Sake.jpeg" alt="Hannah Kirshner and Kohei Yamada on a foraging walk; junmai sake at Matsuura Shuzo." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Hannah-Kirshner-Kohei-Yamada-in-Forest-Junmai-Sake.jpeg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Hannah-Kirshner-Kohei-Yamada-in-Forest-Junmai-Sake-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Hannah-Kirshner-Kohei-Yamada-in-Forest-Junmai-Sake-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Hannah-Kirshner-Kohei-Yamada-in-Forest-Junmai-Sake-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162495" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Hannah Kirshner and Kohei Yamada on a foraging walk; junmai sake at Matsuura Shuzo.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_162497" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162497" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-162497" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Wild-Boar-Meatballs-Examining-Foraged-Leaves.jpeg" alt="Wild boar meatballs with homemade miso and yuzu kosho; inspecting a harvest of foraged greens." width="1200" height="800" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Wild-Boar-Meatballs-Examining-Foraged-Leaves.jpeg 1200w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Wild-Boar-Meatballs-Examining-Foraged-Leaves-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Wild-Boar-Meatballs-Examining-Foraged-Leaves-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Wild-Boar-Meatballs-Examining-Foraged-Leaves-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162497" class="wp-caption-text">Left to right: Wild boar meatballs with homemade miso and yuzu kosho; inspecting a harvest of foraged greens.</figcaption></figure>
Over the next three days, we delve deeper into food culture in Yamanaka. Kirshner takes us foraging for edible plants, pointing out butterbur, wild spikenard, mugwort, and the evocatively named yukinoshita, or “under the snow” (creeping saxifrage). We fill her wicker basket, never taking more than a third of any patch—a forager’s version of Zeno’s paradox. At Mokkei, our bounty transforms into crispy tempura while we make dashi from scratch with chef Naoya Yamazaki of Engawa.
Dashi, the umami-rich stock used not only as a soup base but also in simmered dishes, savory custards like chawanmushi, and more, can be prepared with a variety of ingredients, from mushrooms to seafood. But we learn that the most common version, made with kelp and katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes), evolved thanks to merchant ships known as kitamaebune that traded along the Sea of Japan coast from the 17th to early 20th centuries. They brought kelp down the coast from Hokkaido and ferried katsuobushi back north, disseminating culinary and cultural knowledge.
The same dashi is the base for the boar hot pot we enjoy while local hunter Sakura Yoshida explains how game meat fits into the ecology and worldview of farming communities living at the edge of the wild. In light of recent deadly bear attacks, as wild animals under climate pressure venture farther into populated areas, the importance of effective stewardship in these liminal environments is clear.
Another day, Asami Kuroda, the fifth-generation proprietor of the confectionery Sankeido, teaches us how to make namagashi, traditional unbaked sweets served during tea ceremonies. We try our hands at an early spring motif called Azaleas Among Stones, pressing green rice-flour dough through a sieve to create soft, leaf-like pieces that can be arranged around a core of adzuki bean paste. Smaller sprays of pink dough represent azalea blooms.
We then take our sweets, far more lopsided and spiky than Kuroda’s delicate example, down the street to the home of Toshio Oshita, who runs one of several tea schools in a town of just 7,000 people. Oshita married into a family that’s lived here for 1,400 years—longer than Yamanaka itself has existed—and, having learned tea ceremony with his late wife, continues teaching in her memory. After a ceremonial purification in his mossy garden, we don white tabi socks to enter the tearoom, decorated with antique scrolls and maki-e lacquerware crafted by Oshita’s father. We each choose a tea bowl selected for the season, and our host gracefully prepares matcha one bowl at a time, following a choreography of hospitality dating back nearly 400 years.
Oshita’s unpretentious warmth, miles from the imposing sensei I was expecting, strikes me. I realize that taking part in the retreat is like visiting a friend’s hometown, where your connection to someone known and loved makes you immediately welcome. Everywhere I go in Yamanaka—the public bath, the local shrine, antique shops, cafés—mentioning Kirshner or the Yamadas sparks a convivial mood and easy conversation. I feel the depth and closeness of the community, even as I, a temporary visitor, am only feeling around its edges.
Enjoying a final soak in Hanamurasaki’s rooftop bath, I notice the view has become familiar, overlaid now with a matrix of human connections, legible as a map. Over that hill is Mokkei; across the bridge, Kuroda’s sweets shop; that street leads to Engawa, where we stayed late drinking craft sake and chatting after our farewell dinner the previous night. Spring in the forests of Yamanaka may still be an unknown language, but I begin to understand the magic of this close-knit town.
<figure id="attachment_162494" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162494" style="width: 1800px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-162494" src="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Forest-Walk.jpeg" alt="A forest walk outside Yamanaka Onsen, Japan." width="1800" height="1200" srcset="https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Forest-Walk.jpeg 1800w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Forest-Walk-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Forest-Walk-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Forest-Walk-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Forest-Walk-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://staging.destinasian.com/wp-content/uploads/Yamanaka-Onsen-Crafts-Forest-Walk-1568x1045.jpeg 1568w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-162494" class="wp-caption-text">A forest walk outside Yamanaka Onsen.</figcaption></figure>
The next spring edition of the Foodways &amp; Craftways Retreat takes place on April 23–26, 2027, priced at about US$5,315 per person, based on double occupancy, including accommodation at <a href="https://www.hana-mura.com/english/?DestinAsian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hanamurasaki</a>. For more information and booking, visit the <a href="https://www.mokkei-yamanaka.com/?DestinAsian" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mokkei</a> website.
This article originally appeared in the <a href="https://subscription.destinasian.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">August/September 2026</a> print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Rites of Spring”). Buy a single issue or subscribe <a href="https://subscription.destinasian.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

A forest walk outside Yamanaka Onsen, Japan.

How Yamanaka Onsen Reveals the Beauty of Japanese Crafts