Konnichi Wa

We started Day 8 early as usual, but had a false start as the breeder had delayed his Hikarimono harvest by a few hours. We then moved onto plan 2, which was to visit Yamanaka Oya - this name translates to middle of the mountain, it literally is in the middle of nowhere !

Yamanaka Oya is famous for 2 varieties although he produces around 10 in total. The first is Shiro Utsuri with thick ebony sumi. His own bloodline is one of the original ones that many other breeders used later to establish their own Shiro Utsuri. Today we selected some more finished examples of the variety and then were allowed to take 6 x unfinished ones from his tategoi pond - we don't expect to sell these with so little sumi at present, but we love to grow such koi and study their development over the next year or so. The second, is a new variety Ayawakaba, developed from the midorigoi. This variety is quite unique. It is only the second time we have been able to purchase them. This time we selected from his harvest late yesterday so we were able to get the large jumbo bodied ones which will be in tomorrow's email - and don't forget to look out for the Yuki Asagi (Snow Asagi)!

After this we visited Hirashin ( Brown Chagoi, Yamabuki & Kin Matsuba) . We usually managed to do good business with this old fashioned farm - this year was no exception. Great nisai and Sansai examples will be in tomorrow's post.

Otsuka was next stop and here we selected some smaller unusual koi including his famous Aka Matsuba, Asagi and Ki Utsuri before chasing back to the delayed harvest of this morning - several “specials” were selected here - more tomorrow !!

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