About Hokkaido Azuki Bean

For over 30 years in Makubetsu Town, Hokkaido, Mr. Hirawake Yuu has been carefully raised his Azuki Beans.

Since the Azuki beans are well harvested until they are fully matured, it contains plenty of nutritious substance, and has fine quality of umami flavour.

Hirawake Farm・Mr. Yuu Hirawake
「I have raised the bean carefully
with love like my own child」

I have been making pesticide-free beans for more than 30 years in Makubetsu-cho, Hokkaido.
Harvested beans were dried in sunlight without relying on machines, the condensation can bring the sweetness to the beans.
This azuki bean is perfect for making anko. Please try it once.

Using non-chemical fertilizer cultivation and free of pesticide, Azuki Beans processed carefully with natural drying. It’s really appealing due to its deep colour and elegant fragrance. You can use it to make red rice bean, boiled red bean or Japanese sweets.

Hokkaido "Erimo Azuki" Manufacturer –
Commitment from Mr. Hirawake

The bean has been carefully nurtured without using any chemical fertilizers. Because we don’t use fertilizers, it takes a lot of time and effort to remove the weeds.

We are working together with 100-150 part-timers every year.

The total area of Mr. Hirawake’s field is around 30 hectares. We only use 22 hectares to make the beans, in order to make delicious beans, we let the other 8 hectares to rest.

The special characteristics of the beans is that the beans very particularly stick to ‘natural drying’ process.

Because actually, most of the beans that are generally distributed in the market are those that have been heated and dried by machine.

At the Hirawake Farm, we dry the beans with the cold north wind that blowing through the Tokachi Plain in about 2 to 3 weeks. Beans farmers who have done the traditional method of natural drying is very few at the present.

By sticking to traditional method of natural drying, we are able to constantly keep the delicate flavour of beans.

Left: Pile of the harvested beans while being dried. The sweetness of the beans will be condensed.

Right: We are using primitive tools to remove small beans and pebbles.

It’s also take a great effort to sift through every grain of beans. But even with the hardships, it’s still very exciting to see the flowers of white or pink from the little beans blooming. It is really exciting to see the face of cute beans threshing from the cracked bean pod.

If you ask, “what kind of bean is the best among the beans?” their answer will be, “All of them are really cute, don’t they?” as they have come to love the beans. But if you have to choose, then it’s either ‘uzura beans (pinto beans)’ or ‘tora beans (tiger beans)’. Tiger beans has soft texture and delicious, the white pattern of the beans is something that the other beans don’t have.

Product Details

Name	Azuki Beans "Erimo Azuki"
Contents Amount	500g
Place of Origin	Makubetsu-cho, Hokkaido
Best Before Period	About 8 months