This is Teru 44 years old in a suburb of Tokyo and he's just waking up for work

He's not a morning person and as much as he wants to get the day started like his Japanese counterparts

he often finds himself back asleep on the couch with his cute dog, you make

Oh, his wife is up. He also has two boys, but just like their dad. They enjoy their sleep, too

His wife is making a koroke sandwich for breakfast, which is fairly uncommon for japanese, but it sure looks scrumptious

Do you often need a karaoke sandwich for breakfast?

So it only takes him a few minutes in the bathroom to get ready in the morning and that sink shower surely helps

Teddy drives about 10 to 15 minutes every day to get to work since public transportation in tokyo is so ubiquitous and reasonable

Driving a car to work is quite rare. In fact only five percent of the people who live in Tokyo own a car

So it's quite a nice luxury to own one

His shop is located in Jutakugai

Which means an area where people live once you step outside of the center city area

You can find chill areas like this with a friendly vibe

So i'm back with another day in the life teru should be coming just around the corner. He drove to work today

Let's see what time he went to sleep last night

Good morning. So what time did you sleep last night? And what are you going to do now?

Teru runs a local butcher shop

Which has been in his family for 73 years. It's named after his family

Yanagi and ya is a japanese word that is commonly used at the end of store names

So he's a third generation butcher as his grandfather passed this shop down to his father and his father passed it down to him

The first thing he does is to prepare the showcase. He turns on the refrigerator and cleans the shelves

So, how long does it take you to clean in the morning

Now he has to take out the garbage from the previous day

In Tokyo businesses are required to pay for their trash in this case with coupon stickers in his ward 120 liter bag

This size costs about 1.50 cents each time

Now it's time to prepare the meat

First he brings up the meat from the refrigerator room and stores it back in the showcase

while also taking a mental inventory the showcase has about 60 different kinds of meat which requires a lot of

Preparation so from here on out it's his responsibility to continually fill the empty spaces in the showcase

So, what's your favorite meat

Although he started officially working with his dad when he was 18

He actually got his first start when he was still in elementary school at his uncle's butcher shop

Closer to home than his dad's shop

He would stand on a crate behind the showcase and greet customers as well as wash dishes in the back

He also learned a great deal on how to cut meat from his uncle a skill. He would continue to hone later down the road

Okay, so what's the difference between that last meet and this one

Right here

In Japan thinly sliced meat is commonly used in everyday home cooking more often than thick steak meat

It's part of a butcher's job to know how to slice the meats in various thicknesses so we can be served in japanese dishes

Such as Shabu-Shabu

Shogayaki and Yakiniku

So, how is your meat different than say the neighborhood supermarkets?

Which is famous for having a strict grading criteria for its meat as only thirty percent of the cows in Miyagi

Prefecture are good enough to be certified with that premium A5 medal and all Japanese beef is considered Wagyu

but not all Wagyu is considered A5 and the specific sendai farm that produces Teru's A5 wagyu feeds its cows with an original blend of

Three kinds of wheat in addition to steamed rice just as we humans eat

One of his morning tasks is to prepare shipments from an online supermarket in Japan called cook pad mart

It sells higher-end groceries from farms and local shops like teresa

Now Teru goes out and makes personal meat deliveries to local businesses such as restaurants and even child daycare facilities

In fact this cafe uses tattoos meat to make their in-house signature curry, where are you going now?

Being the local butcher he works closely with the community and naturally develops many worthwhile relationships with its members

That's the final stop a vietnamese restaurant

The butcher shop is now open for business

So the stores finally opened and when tedu was making deliveries his two staff already arrived

Even though the store is already open. They still have a lot of prep to do

Let's go check out what else they have to do to correct the story

What's that

So Yanagiya doesn't only sell meat but also fried dishes like Kuroke cheese

And Hamkatsu damn I'm getting hungry

Generally Japanese housewives pick them up when they don't have time to cook or want to add one more dish to the table

Oh and looks like the shop uses a water fryer

Which keeps the oil fresh by separating the frying waste and preventing the oil from oxidizing

While one staff prepares the fried goods, the other staff takes care of the customers and of course Teru continues to cut meat

so in a Japanese butcher shop

You'll notice there's a lot more raw meat products when compared to sausages hams marinated meats and skewers as this is what customers prefer

Oh, that's a cook pad mart shipping service he was preparing for earlier this morning

Teru what's that for?

As a butcher and owner it's part of his job to find and develop partnerships in order to create new products to attract customers

Wow, that looks delicious

So he was looking into making an original bacon for his shop and through his meat producer

He was introduced to this sausage shop and although his family already has established fenders

He says it's still his responsibility to develop evolve and adapt his business

So you've probably already noticed that all of us are wearing masks I actually wanted to ask Teru how it's affected his business

Let's go ask him now

Teru, so how is the business doing this pandemic?

How about now?

For everyone's safety, he limits the number of customers up to three at a time in order to maintain social distancing

Ask customers to wear masks and they clean the store throughout the day

So it's just after one. It's quiet down a little bit. Let's go ask them some questions. So why did you decide to work here?

And how about you?

Nice I feel like everyone loves him in this area

Time for deliveries and look at the size of that pig

Incredible never thought I'd see a guy carrying a pig on his shoulder on the streets of Tokyo

Oh and there's a poultry and the beef delivery, too

Where are you going now?

Finally lunch time. He usually takes a short lunch at a nearby cafe or simply goes for takeout today

He's quickly eating at one of the shops. He delivered to earlier

What's that?

So before it gets busy around 4 pm when all the housewives come to shop for dinner

He usually ships the bones from the pork meat

What part is that?

Apparently, refrigerating the meat with the bone in and no vacuum pack helps evaporate moisture which then condenses the meat and creates a deeper

Umami flavor at his shop

The pork is stored bone in but the beef is too big to store that way

So the vendor delivers the beef with bone stripped Umami rich and vacuum sealed

These little details make a huge difference in taste. So Teru works diligently to provide his customers with the best meat possible

Oh, that's curry from the cafe, it smells amazing

As part of his job. He also trains the staff how to prepare and package products for sale as well as how to cut the meat

So it's three in the afternoon and he's still cutting me like I thought that maybe by the afternoon and towards the end of the day

All of the stuff he cut he can just use but he's still cutting me. It's amazing

So as mentioned earlier the shop only serves A5 meat, which is the highest quality of meat you can get in

Japan, based on their own grating system factory in qualities, like yield firmness texture and marbling nothing beats A5 Wagyu beef

So as I'm looking around I'm actually pretty curious as what's the most expensive meat in the shop. Let's go ask Teru

It seems like the store is getting busy

And it's pretty clear that Teru loves everything about being a butcher including communicating with his customers

Oh a customer is buying the premium A5 beefsteak and included in the wrapping is a white square block in

Japan butchers commonly provide three blocks of b-fat to cook the steak with the Wagyu fat provided has a sweet flavor called "Wagyukou"

And it adds a distinct scent and flavor to the dish

So two hours before the store closes Teru and his staff start cleaning the store

They wash every single knife chopping board sanitize a whole store also to thoroughly clean each machine

He takes it apart piece by piece every night. I wonder if every country is this meticulous about cleaning?

So Teru tells me that refrigerated meat usually expires within three to five days. But his shop almost never has any dead stock

Are you done for today?

So before going home he needs to make a couple deliveries

He drops off pork at a Tonkatsu restaurant and the pork bones. He cut out earlier at a ramen shop.

I guess little goes to waste at his shop

Yay, finally home, it looks like they're having ski yucky for dinner. And of course using it

Ah that looks incredible

So this is how Teru ends his night

He spends time with his family having dinner

And then after that, he'll probably have a bath spend some more time with his family and then go to sleep by 12 o'clock

That's pretty much a day in the life of a Japanese. Butcher

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