Workshops
Onsite & Online
Onsite workshops
When we opened our market stall back in 2019, we didn’t dream of hosting koji workshops at all. We didn’t think there would be any demand. Koji was not so well known outside Japan back then.
However, since Noma published its renowned book The Noma Guide to Fermentation, the situation changed quickly and drastically. Noma was fascinated by the work of koji in cooking application and spared about half of 2-inch book for koji and koji-related ferments. As a result, chefs around the world started searching for information about koji eagerly and we had many inquiries as a result. Our workshop places were quickly filled as soon as we secretly announced the dates on Instagram.
We designed our workshop as practical and experiential as possible. We don’t want our participants to be satisfied with just being loaded with novel knowledge. We want them to explore koji on their own after our workshops. After all, koji making is something to deal with creature and it takes time to get to know them. You wouldn’t expect that you understand your new puppy’s personality from day one. It is the same thing. It requires communication. We also explain the fundamental of koji’s biology from the same reason.
We aim at providing a good kick-start of koji journey for our participants. We are happy that many of them are now making koji as professional!
The onsite workshops we host are as follows
- koji classes
- miso classes
- doburoku classes
- soy sauce classes
Due to Covid, we are unable to offer any of the workshops at the moment, but are hoping to resume as soon as situation allows.
Online workshops
We started working on online class after covid.
It took quite a while to prepare the platform, because it involved a lot of new technologies to be implemented. We invested vast amount of time as we didn’t want to compromise the quality of experience to offer.
Behind the scene, the largest challenge was to show the subtle growth of koji on rice through the computer screen. Rice grain is a tiny object. There is no contrast in colour between rice and koji mycelium (both are white). These were very tricky!
However, once these issues were overcome, we are convinced that online classes are better suited for learning koji as participants can experience whole process of 3 days koji making from the very beginning (washing rice) to the very end (drying koji) together with us. When you do something for the first time, it is difficult to know whether you are doing things right or not, especially for something which takes three days! By making koji in parallel with us, you can confirm where you are in each steps in procedure. You can also adjust your setting to optimise the koji growth if it is required. We find that the confidence level and repeating rate is very high after the class.
No geographical constraint is also an advantage. We now have participants from all over the world!
We designed following classes so far and more classes to come.
- koji classes
- miso making classes
- doburokumaking classes
- soy sauce making classes
- nukazuke class
The classes being planned are as follows.
- natto making
- koji cosmetics
