Dassai Blue Hyde Park
Reframing the brewery as a teaching lab for taste — demystifying sake and amplifying Dassai’s brand of democratic craft.
Overview
Envisioned as Dassai’s U.S. flagship, the Hyde Park brewery brings Japanese brewing tradition into thoughtful dialogue with New York’s culinary culture and the Hudson Valley setting. The destination translates decades of precision, discipline, and care into an experience of quiet luxury that feels both refined and approachable.
Developed in collaboration with Local Projects, the experience moves beyond a conventional tasting room to reveal the craft, people, and philosophy behind each bottle.
Guests encounter Dassai’s meticulous brewing process alongside the individuals who shape it, gaining a deeper understanding of sake as a living practice shaped by human expertise. Rather than focusing on instruction, the journey builds fluency and confidence, allowing guests to arrive at the tasting with clarity, shared language, and a heightened appreciation for the sake before them.
Partners
Pelli Clarke & Partners, Jun Mitsui & Associates
Services
Experience Design, Physical Design, Visual Experience Design, Content Development, Strategy
“'Tema' means caring more with time and effort for the quality”
The Details
Learning Through The Senses
The experience unfolds across four thematic chapters, Origins, Ingredients, Elements, and Flavor, engaging sight, touch, and taste as guests move from the fundamentals of rice polishing to more nuanced expressions of aroma and balance. Through handling refined rice varieties and encountering sculptural forms that translate flavor profiles into three-dimensional interpretations, visitors develop an intuitive understanding of Dassai’s brewing philosophy and arrive at the tasting with confidence, shared language, and a personal point of view.
Material choices and the graphic design system work together to reinforce the sensory journey, pairing porous ceramics, warm maple, and finely detailed surfaces with a layered visual language that unfolds like a personalized narrative. This integrated approach supports learning through subtle guidance rather than instruction, grounding abstract ideas in physical experience and allowing visitors to carry both knowledge and memory of the sake beyond the glass.
The People and the Practice of Tema
At the heart of Dassai Blue is tema, a deep respect for process and an unwavering commitment to quality. Traditionally, sake brewing in Japan is governed by a strict hierarchy, with authority concentrated in a single master brewer. Dassai reimagined this structure, establishing a collaborative, democratic model in which knowledge is shared and excellence is collective.
This philosophy is made visible throughout the brewery. Manga-style portraits by artist Kenshi Hirokane introduce guests to the brewing team, offering insight into the individuals who shape each bottle and the values that guide their work. The result is a human connection that reinforces Dassai’s belief that great craft is the product of many hands working in concert.
During production hours, this connection becomes literal. Visitors can look directly into the brewery itself, witnessing the brewers at work through carefully placed windows that frame the process without interrupting it.
Windows Into the Craft
To ensure that every guest, regardless of timing, can experience the rigor and care of sake-making, the experience path extends beyond the main space. Large-scale video projections mirror the production spaces, presenting exclusive footage of the brewing team moving through the steps of Dassai Blue’s process.
Together, these moments, both live and mediated, offer a layered view into the discipline, patience, and precision that define Dassai. The brewery becomes an invitation to slow down, observe closely, and appreciate the quiet artistry behind every pour.
