Throughout the history of sake brewing, there has been a handful of individuals who have had a huge impact on the craft in the form of technical developments or discoveries. One such benefactor of brewing was Professor Kin'ichi Noshiro of Kumamoto.
Hired as a sake taster by the Finance Ministry in 1902, Noshiro advanced to the head of the department within a few years. In 1909, with the aim of improving the quality of sake from Kumamoto, all of the breweries in the prefecture contributed funds and founded the Kumamoto-ken Shuzo Kenkyujo (Kumamoto Prefecture Sake Research Center). It was equipped as a proper sake brewery, and its aim was to perform research and instruct the local breweries on how to brew better sake. They invited Noshiro to be the first head of the center.
Although there was much progress under Noshiro's direction, two things stand out in particular. One was the installation of an elaborately controlled window on the ceiling of the koji-muro, the special room where koji is made, that allowed for very precise temperature control. Temperature and timing are everything in koji production, which is the heart of sake production.