Many people think that sake is to be drunk only warmed up. It is wrong. The temperature of sake accounts for its taste and smell. The temperature may be varied from 5 to 55 degrees depending upon the type and your wish. Also the temperature range of sake depends on its sort or specie. It is better to drink odorous and light sake cooled (resyu-sake). In Japan rules of drinking sake have been formed for centuries. Here are the main ones.

• Bottle for sake is held with two hands: right at the top and left at the bottom.
• Cup for sake is held with two hands.
• You should not touch the neck of a bottle, hold the bottom.
• Both hands should carry a cup for sake.
• Woman looks gracefully if she holds a cup in the right hand, supporting it by the left one.

If you drink too fast sake may spill out of the cup. That will bring to naught all your efforts to be polite.

While pouring sake you should slowly bend the bottle for sake and trying not to touch the cup of the one your treat pour sake first slowly than faster than slowly again until you fill the cup for about 0,7 of the volume. So you won't spill or overflow sake.

To avoid final drops from the neck you should not raise the neck, you should move down the lower part turning the bottle round and gradually bringing it to the upright position.

You should watch closely so that you do not run out of sake while pouring.

Cups are served along with sake. First the guest sitting in the most honorable place accepts them and transfers further. You should take the lowest cup and transfer all the rest to the next one. Then the host pours sake.

Having drunk sake you should take chopsticks and try pickled products.

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