Our Origin Story

II was born and raised in Japan, where fermented foods — especially koji-fermented staples like miso, soy sauce, sake, and pickled vegetables — are part of everyday meals. At home, women traditionally pass down the knowledge of caring for their family’s well-being through food. Preparing balanced meals is taken seriously — both as a duty to support the family’s health and as an expression of love and care.

Even as convenience foods began to replace homemade rituals, my mother continued her home cooking with curiosity and joy, blending both traditional, experimental, and seasonal dishes. Fermentation was one of her many creative practices — a quiet ritual of care and patience that shaped my early sense of nourishment. Through her cooking, I felt not only her love but also a deeper connection — to generations of ancestors and to the cultural meaning carried through these everyday acts.

Japanese home cooking isn’t just about fueling the body; it’s a mindful practice that nourishes body, mind, and soul. It honors the rhythm of nature, celebrates simplicity, and connects families through shared meals made with sincerity and care.

When I moved to the United States, I focused on building a career in industrial design — determined to achieve, to adapt, and to be accepted by the conventional idea of success, using my natural strength: creativity. I spent nearly 17 years in a high-pressure consulting environment shaped by capitalistic demands, slowly drifting away from my true essence. The constant stress and distance from my core values left me depleted and eventually ill, as my body began to mirror the imbalance I was living.

Having experienced side effects from conventional medicine before, I felt defeated and out of options until I came across functional medicine — a lifestyle-based, food-as-medicine approach that supports the body’s natural healing holistically. It immediately resonated with me.

For the next five years, I worked with world-renowned practitioners to address my chronic illness through elimination diets, protocols, and lifestyle changes. This experience gave me not only knowledge but also compassion — for myself and for others navigating similar struggles. It eventually led me to become a certified Functional Medicine Health Coach, which I still practice today — both to support my personal health and to guide the creation of health-focused products that deliver true quality to my customers.

Despite all the effort and endless new experiments, my body’s inflammatory response always returned, with only brief moments of relief. I was exhausted — not just in body, but in mind and heart.

Then one day, during a group nutrition session, something within me finally burst out:

“I’m done trying to fix my body. I’m going to live with it (eczema). This is the message from my body trying to heal me.”

The room went silent, and the practitioner tried to convince me that it was curable if I kept trying, but I didn’t care. I had never been so certain or confident. That moment changed everything — I stopped believing I was broken and began to understand that my body was communicating with me, guiding me back toward balance.

This realization led me to deepen my study of life coaching, focusing on self-trust, alignment, and the integration of mind and body. Through coaching, I learned to see opportunities in every experience and began to rebuild a relationship with myself grounded in acceptance and unwavering trust that everything happens for me to learn and grow.

Even long before I understood any of this, cooking had always been my joy — my way to decompress after long workdays. I didn’t realize then that those late-night kitchen experiments were keeping my creativity alive and connected to my roots. Later, when my body became reactive to many foods, I embraced the challenge to make my own versions — experimenting with new ingredients and recipes. My creativity never stopped me from finding a way to satisfy both my taste buds and my soul. Exploring fermentation, gluten-free sourdough baking, and seeking out quality, locally grown ingredients became a natural progression of my healing and self-expression. Truly understanding the quality of food and where it came from deepened my connection to the earth, my culture, and myself.

A return trip to Japan grounded everything. Sharing homemade meals with my mother and seeing her continue to evolve her cooking with creativity and curiosity reminded me of the deep relationship between food, family, and nature. In recent years, even in Japan, traditional fermentation has been receiving renewed attention — not only for its health benefits but also for its cultural and ancestral importance. People are rediscovering how these time-tested practices connect us with nature and the wisdom that existed long before modern technology and artificial food systems. This revival affirms what I have always believed: the answers we seek often live in the traditions we’ve nearly forgotten.

I founded Tasty Koji to share that reconnection — creating simple, delicious, health-focused condiments inspired by Japanese tradition. Each product is made with care, using time-honored fermentation methods and high-quality ingredients that naturally enhance flavor and well-being.

Tasty Koji respects timeless wisdom while adapting it for modern life effortlessly — so people can rediscover the joy of cooking again.