U+915B "酛" CJK Unified Ideograph-# Unicode Character

U+915B "酛" CJK Unified Ideograph-# is a Chinese character (hanzi) that is also used in Japanese, primarily associated with the production of sake (Japanese rice wine). It represents the concept of "motomi" or "shubo", which is a yeast starter mash cultivated from steamed rice, water, and koji mold, essential for initiating fermentation in sake brewing. The character is composed of the radical for "alcohol" or "fermented beverage" (酉) on the left, and the element "元" (meaning origin or source) on the right, reflecting its role as the foundational ingredient in sake making. This ideograph is encoded in the CJK Unified Ideographs block and is notably used in Japanese industrial and brewing contexts to denote a specific stage in the sake production process.