The rainy season is over. The skies are clear again. We've reached the end of July... Time for the final stage: drying the pickled ume. Since the red shiso was added to the pot, they have been sitting there slowly absorbing the colour and flavour of the leaves, and are turning their trademark pink/red hue.
The benchmark timing for drying the umeboshi is the arrival of "doyo ushi-no-hi": the Day of the Ox that falls within the time period at the start of summer known as doyo, according to the traditional calendar. This year, though, we had a dilemma. There were two Days of the Ox – on 22nd July and 3rd August.
So we plumped for a weekend in between, when the weather looked like it was going to hold for four consecutive days. That's the time it takes to get them done.
As always, the pleasure of reopening the crock lies in the anticipation of seeing how the ume have changed over the past month — magnified by the delicious waft of pickling aromas that emerge and assail the nostrils.
Under the drop lid, the juice – the aka-umezu – is a beautiful clear, deep red.
Scooping away the layer of shiso, the ume are revealed...
The shiso is taken out and carefully reserved – its job is far from done.
The ume are looking nice and rosy now — especially those at the top, closest to the layer of shiso.
Those at the bottom are still a lot paler — it's very obvious once they're laid out on the drying tray.
They stay outside on their tray all day, from morning till mid-afternoon (ie before the moisture starts to build up in the air). After a few hours, they need to be turned over, so that both sides gets exposed to the sun equally.
By late afternoon, after about 7-8 hours, they're starting to pucker up nicely. Time to bring them in.
Back they go into the umezu in the crock. Because they've dried out a bit, that means they will readily absorb more of the juice and colour.
End of Day 1. Three more days to go...
[The next step, the drying game Days 2 & 3, continues here]
