Twenty-five years after particle physicists began studying prospects for a linear collider, Japan is poised to decide whether to pay for half of the $7 billion project and build the 20-kilometer-long superconducting tunnel in mountains northeast of Tokyo. Prospective suppliers — from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries ...

With the removal of tariffs on European wines as soon as next year, Mercian Corp. is betting on Japanese grapes to weather the onslaught. Mercian, the country's biggest and oldest vintner, is nearly doubling its vineyards on expectations that its niche grapes — grown in ...

The new boss of Takara Holdings Inc., Japan's biggest sake-supplier to overseas markets, wants to make the rice-based alcohol as popular as wine. Mutsumi Kimura, 55, who in June became the third-youngest president in Takara's 93-year history, plans to expand the company's network in the ...

Coffee lovers beware: Climate change is threatening supplies of high-quality beans, with one coffee house hunting for the perfect bean to withstand warmer conditions. Tokyo's Key Coffee Inc. is testing 35 varieties of Arabica trees in Indonesia in collaboration with World Coffee Research of Oregon ...

The end of Japan's four decades of rice-market control could be good news for noodle lovers. That's because rice farmers may plant alternative crops like wheat once government control ends by March 31 and look to tap into rising demand for ramen. Fukuoka Prefecture is ...

Corporate enfant terrible, Takafumi Horie, built one of Japan's most successful internet businesses, stood for the Diet, went to prison and started a space company that aims to put the country's first privately funded rocket into orbit. Now he has a new frontier: cattle. The ...

Brewery executive Kosuke Kuji brought his best sake to a New York booze showcase 16 years ago hoping to promote high-end sake to a new generation of sophisticated foreign drinkers. They were a little disappointed. It wasn't that sake from his Nanbu-Bijin brewery failed to ...

Japan's swelling ranks of working women have grape growers 10,000 miles away cheering. Chilean vintners have emerged as the biggest beneficiary of Japan's booming wine market. Their low-priced, fruit-driven product has found a receptive niche among women in their 40s and 50s, who have helped ...

Diamonds aren't necessarily forever. At least not in Japan, where jewelry owners are unloading unwanted jewels for cash at a record pace and shipping them off to buyers in China and India. The appeal of gem-encrusted rings and earrings that were part of the luxury ...