OKAYA, Japan — Not long after dawn, Japanese sake brewer Mie Takahashi checks the temperature of the mixture fermenting at her family's 150-year-old sake brewery, Koten, nestled in the foothills of the Japanese Alps.
She stands on an uneven narrow wooden platform over a massive tank containing more than 3,000 liters (800 gallons) of a bubbling soup of steamed rice, water and a rice mold known as koji, and gives it a good mix with a long paddle.
