No park—no ring—no afternoon gentility—
No company—no nobility—
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member—
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!1
The excerpt above is from “No!,” a poem by the regrettably oft-overlooked English poet Thomas Hood (1799-1845). In this short work the poet cogently expresses his distaste for the month of November by employing the word no in various contexts until the last line, when no transitions to November. Normally, we would agree with Hood’s assessment. How can such a month compete with May or October, for instance? It can’t. However, November 2021 was certainly a “yes” time for drinkingjapan.org. First, there was EXPAT EXPO, which we attended, enjoyed immensely, and suspect was a resounding success for the organizers. Second, there was the Kisaki Reception in Aoyama, which we attended, enjoyed immensely, and suspect was a resounding success for the organizers. We will write more about the latter in a future entry.
EXPAT EXPO Tokyo 2021 was held on November 5 and 6 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center, Hamamatsucho-Kan. The Expo was designed to familiarize the foreign community with firms providing various goods and services and to facilitate the employment of foreign nationals by simultaneously holding a job fair. A number of exhibitors were of interest to drinkingjapan.org, two of which we will mention in this entry.
Dassai, produced by Asahi Shuzo Co., Ltd., needs no introduction to sake lovers. They were represented by Ms. Eri Chihara, who served us a most pleasant sparkling sake and a remarkably smooth and subtly sweet amazake, the best we have ever had!
Then, there was Kurashu, co-founded by Philipp Maas. Mr. Maas’s firm intends to bring consumers and select sake brewers together through an interesting online test designed to gauge the taste preferences of the former. Mr. Maas was joined by his associate Mr. Knopp and Miss Sake Japan (pictured below). We have great expectations for Kurashu.
Drinking Japan 