The process of making Awa wasanbon toh--"Togi"(refining): "Aragake"(first refining; rough refining)

The refining process starts after allowing the "Shiroshita-toh"(coarse sugar) to stand for at least one week. "Togi" refers to the unique refining process of manufacturing wasanbon toh.

The main ingredient in ordinary sugar is sucrose. The main ingredient in the granuated sugar and johaku-toh(refined sugar) is also sucrose. As you can tell by looking at them, sucrose is originally white. The "Shiroshita-toh" would also be the same white color if we did not use the "Togi" method to refine it.

"Togi" is in short an incomplete refining process. However, by doing so wasanbon toh becomes a completely different type of sugar and contains the nice taste of the original sugar cane.

Refining sugar means drawing the syrup out of the coarse sugar. The coarse sugar is half solid with the syrup mixed in with the crystalized pure sugar. The most direct way to extract the syrup is to squeeze it out. In refining wasanbon toh, this squeezing method is also used.

First, the coarse sugar, which had been preserved in a barrel, is divided into eight parts. Each piece is covered with flaxen cloth and placed in a box. Applying the principle of leverage, we place a stone weight using a balancing stick. This method is probably an application of a very similar method for squeezing out sake lees.

We leave the coarse sugar as it is for a whole day. The squeezed syrup stays at the bottom of a pot buried in the ground. This procedure is called "Aragake".

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