![\"\"](\"https:\/\/eastbayexpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/06\/Umami-Mart-book-for-web.jpg\")
<\/a>UMAMI MART founders Kayoko Akabori and Yoko Kumano released a new book, \u2018Everyday Sake: The Go-To Guide To Choosing, Pairing + Serving.\u2019 (Photo on left by Cayce Clifford; both photos courtesy of Clarkson Potter Publishers, Penguin Random House)<\/p>\nWhen Akabori and Kumano both moved back to the Bay Area, they wanted to turn the blog into a business. They started out by importing barware from Japan which, Akabori explained, became popular with the rise of the bespoke classic cocktail movement. Tools such as strainers, muddlers, jiggers and long bar spoons. The American equivalents, aesthetically speaking, weren\u2019t as nice as the ones made in Japan. \u201cThat\u2019s why Japanese cocktail barware became a huge hit, because it\u2019s high quality. It\u2019s beautiful,\u201d Akabori said.<\/p>\n
The Japanese concept of mottainai is alien to this American life. If the TV, mattress or spouse you share it with is flawed, we\u2019re all empowered to replace them with the latest model. When Akabori heard her parents use the term, she understood that being wasteful wasn\u2019t a good thing. But the concept goes beyond the act of cooking every part of an animal or a vegetable. Mottainai encompasses much broader ideas about preserving one\u2019s heritage and culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you travel to Japan,\u201d Akabori said, \u201cyou notice how well they preserve things.\u201d That sustained history of artisanal craft in Japan has since vanished in the United States. Kumano described that approach as \u201cthe care of craftsmanship,\u201d adding, \u201cIf you go to a coffee bar in Japan the furniture is the same from the 1950s because they\u2019ve kept it so clean and they preserve everything so well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Umami Mart\u2019s shelves and display tables are filled with barware, plateware and arty knickknacks. But there\u2019s also an enormous cabinet stocked with bottles of sake and shochu that stretches toward the bar at the back of the store. Kumano is the sake director; she used to work at Takara Sake in Berkeley. Akabori looks after the shochu program. And Katrina, their bartender, tends to the cocktail program.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love sake because it\u2019s such a great food-pairing beverage,\u201d Kumano said. \u201cIt\u2019s also casual, more in the spirit of beer than wine.\u201d She likes to drink it both cold and hot. Sake is a fermented beverage whereas shochu is a brewed spirit. Akabori said she drinks it with a soda mixer as a highball. \u201cMy favorite is the sweet potato shochu,\u201d she said. \u201cIt just has a nice earthiness.\u201d She regularly drinks it at mealtime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s made with the flavors of sweet potato, barley, green tea or sesame, shochu tastes very different from sake. \u201cSome people get mixed up and they have shochu thinking they\u2019re having sake\u2014and the shochu tastes really strong,\u201d Kumano said. \u201cUmami is the biggest thing about sake, but it\u2019s sweeter and lower in alcohol.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n