About — Tokyo Shelf

Tokyo Shelf publishes first English editions of forgotten Japanese technical and artisanal texts.

The works are drawn from the pre-modern Japanese technical literature — Meiji- and Taishō-era brewing treatises, koji and fermentation manuals, and the working knowledge of pre-modern Japanese craft. Most of these texts have rested for a century, untouched by English-language readers.

I seek out works whose contents would be of practical or scholarly use to readers outside Japan — craft brewers, R&D researchers, food-science academics — and read each in full before committing to translation. The translations are prepared and reviewed line by line, with original tables, diagrams, and chemical or microbiological data preserved and modernized where useful. Each release is published as HTML, PDF, and Markdown.

I work from Yokohama, alone, with patience. Each edition takes weeks.

Currently in preparation:

• Kuro-Kōji (1919) — Kawauchi Genichiro’s personal field notebook on black koji (Aspergillus luchuensis Inui) and shōchū distillation. 48 pages. Sample available.
• Saishin Shōyu Jōzō-ron (1913) — Toganō Meijirō’s 469-page foundational treatise on Japanese soy sauce brewing. Sample available.

If you’d like a sample of a specific work, or to commission translation of a particular pre-modern Japanese title, write to masae@tokyo-shelf.com.

— Masae Sato Yokohama, 2026