Meat ── Wagyu
Tajima Ushi
the root stock behind Kobe Beef and others
The root stock behind Kobe Beef and many other brands, its bloodlines long kept valley by valley.
- Origin: Hyogo
- About 450 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
A strain of Japanese Black cattle raised in the mountains of northern Hyogo, said to sit at the root of many brand-name wagyu once you trace their bloodlines back far enough. Fine muscle fibers let marbling settle finely through the lean meat. It rarely reaches the table under its own name, Tajima beef — more often it's raised again under another region's brand, as Matsusaka or Kobe beef.
How it's made
In Koge, in Kami Town's Ojiro district, a farmer named Maeda Shusuke is said to have built a system for selecting and breeding superior cattle back in the Edo period; from that line, the sire Tajiri-go was born in 1939. In this land of steep mountains and valleys, where crossing passes to breed cattle was difficult, bloodlines were kept within each valley, tended one animal at a time by small-scale breeders.
Why it took this shape
One account holds that the region's rugged terrain, with so few roads, kept breeding confined to close bloodlines within each valley — and that isolation is what purified certain lines into ones especially strong in marbling, valley by valley. Tajiri-go's blood is said to run through most of the country's Japanese Black cattle today; read together, the closed terrain that shaped this bloodline's purity became the foundation many other regional brands later built on.
Before you go
- At yakiniku, shabu-shabu, and hot potGrilling your own meat at yakiniku, swishing thin slices at shabu-shabu, and sharing from the pot — the customs behind each.
- Reservations and queuesFrom phone reservations still being the norm at many shops, to how queues work, seating alone at the counter, and asking a hotel for help.
Dishes in the same style
- Aizu GyuSteers and heifers of Japanese Black raised in the Aizu basin, fed mainly local rice straw — the basin's sharp seasonal swings are said to suit fattening, making it Fukushima's leading brand.
- Awa GyuPedigreed Japanese Black fattened in Tokushima, which gained recognition after being shown at a Tokyo meat market competition in 1962 — said to have a moist, fine-grained texture and modest fat.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Derived style
- Kobe BeefA title, not a herd: only Tajima cattle meeting strict marbling standards may bear the name.
- Sendai GyuOne of the strictest brands: only carcasses graded a full 5 for quality may carry the name.
- Hida GyuBuilt on the line of a single famed sire, Yasufuku — raised in the Hida mountains.
- Maesawa GyuRaised in Maesawa along the Kitakami river — Tohoku's flagship marbled beef.
- Miyazaki GyuA prefecture-wide brand that has repeatedly taken the top prize at Japan's national wagyu exhibition.
- Noto GyuJapanese Black raised on the Noto peninsula, tracing to three Tajima sires brought from Hyogo in 1892 — its fat is said to carry notably high oleic acid, for a refined melt.
- Awaji BeefPure Tajima-line cattle raised on Awaji Island, a brand producers founded in 1986 — selected for balance between lean and fat rather than marbling volume, with a small annual output.
Also from Hyogo
- AkashiyakiOctopus folded into a batter of wheat flour, jin-ko starch, egg, and dashi, cooked and dipped in a warm broth — Akashi's own take on the round batter-and-octopus dish, distinguished from takoyaki by that broth in place of sauce.
- Ako saltA salt tied to Japan's earliest full-scale commercial saltfields, using the irihama tidal-field method perfected in the Edo period. Controlling seawater with channels and embankments let work continue regardless of the tide, and the method is said to have remained Japan's main salt-making approach for some 300 years.
- Banshu RamenA distinctly sweet soy broth, said to have taken root among the town's textile-mill workers.
- Banshu Tenobe SomenA document held at Ikaruga-ji temple in Taishi records the word 'saumen' in an entry dated 1418, the oldest known reference to somen in Hyogo. In the Edo period the Ryuno domain formally licensed and encouraged the trade, built on locally grown wheat, the clear Ibo River, and salt from Ako.
- Botan NabeA Tanba-Sasayama hot pot of wild boar and seasonal vegetables simmered in a broth of white and red miso, often finished with a dusting of ground Japanese pepper. Some restaurants are said to arrange the sliced boar meat like the petals of a peony.