Photo/Illutration Yutaro Nakade stands in front of a traditional “noren” curtain at Akishima Pasta Kobo on May 30. The noren announces that the restaurant serves pasta made with Akishima water. (Hiromichi Fujita)

The city of Akishima in western Toyo is piping aquifer water to its residents, restaurants and brewers, creating a buzz about the quality and drawing business investors.

Akishima is the only municipality in the capital that supplies groundwater from deep below the surface as tap water. In 2021, it set up stations that offer piped water free of charge.

“We’re going all out to draw as many people as possible to Akishima for business,” a city industry promoter said.

Some compare the water to mineral water.

Yutaro Nakade, 37, was looking for a location to set up a restaurant. He wanted a site somewhere along the JR Chuo Line or Ome Line.

Nakade visited a real estate agency in Akishima, where he was offered a glass of water.

He found it so “sweet and mild” that he decided on the spur of the moment to set up his business in Akishima. Two years ago, he opened Akishima Pasta Kobo in an old renovated private house.

Nakade makes his pasta using Akishima water. He boils it in plenty of hot water and also uses the water to make pasta sauces and boils it for coffee using beans he roasts himself.

Akishima Pasta Kobo is drawing customers from across Tokyo and beyond. It is so successful that all of its seats are reserved on some days.

“Thanks to quality water, pasta sauces appear to cling better to noodles,” Nakade said.

Another entrepreneur who uses Akishima water is brewer Yasuhiro Chida, 39.

He brews craft beer near the south exit of JR Akishima Station and also operates a beer bar on the premises.

Chida looked at sites across the capital after quitting a job as a company worker to start a business. He built his brewery in Akishima in 2018 because he knew about the city’s exceptional water as he had lived there before.

Chida named his brewery Isana Brewing after a fossilized whale discovered in Akishima. “Isana” is an old word for the species.

Isana Brewing’s beer is marked by a fine foam. It gives a tender sensation, created by nitrogen gas.

A good quality water is “one of the conditions for delicious beer, for sure,” Chida said. However, a beer’s flavor is said to be influenced more by the brewing method than the water itself.

Why do people admire Akishima water so much?

According to the city administration, rain and snow falling on the mountains soaks into the soil. For the next 30 years it percolates through sand, clay and other subterranean layers.

Akishima bills itself as the only municipality in Tokyo that pipes only groundwater from depths of 70 meters or more into taps. Most other parts of the capital supply water from rivers.

Those sensitive to odors in tap water will find Akishima water a refreshing change. It has an indefinably gentle feeling as it washes smoothly down the throat, relieving thirst on a hot and humid day.

Good water can help reinvigorate local communities and an example of this is Akishima itself, with a population of 110,000.

More and more small eateries are using the municipality’s water in their delicacies.

In the shopping area near Haijima Station on the JR and Seibu lines, 16 eateries serve a Haijima Highball, which uses Akishima water. Liqueurs from Ishikawa Brewery Co. in nearby Fussa are diluted with Akishima-derived soda water.

Hikers returning from the Okutama mountains sometimes pause to try the Haijima Highball, said restaurateur Nao Takahashi, 51, of contemporary Japanese cuisine outlet Wagokoro Tsujimaru.

He said the hikers bother to get off at Hajima on their way back home in central Tokyo and elsewhere to have a drink.

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