I admit it. I had to travel all the way to the Kindom of Tonga to learn about shochu. In my six years in Japan, I had simply not heard of it. Sounds ridiculous, but it's true. No, the Tongans don't make it, never mind drink it. They hadn't heard of it till recently either. In fact, most of them still haven't heard of it. But if Takahiro and Akiko Oitate have their way, shochu will become the newest popular spirit to hit the South Pacific.
Oitate, an electrician by trade, first came to Tonga about 10 years ago as a member of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV). He worked for the Tonga Electric Power Board. It was during his two-year service that he realized that Tonga produces a variety of root crops including kava, the root of the pepper plant; taro, a starchy tuber; cassava, the starchy edible root of the tapioca plant; and kumara, or sweet potato. (The biggest cash crop is pumpkins, air-freighted mostly to Japan and worth about $10 million a year.) Oitate's interests lay primarily in the latter two roots, from which shochu and other Japanese spirits are made.
"I had no idea how to make shochu," Oitate explained in his home-based shop. "I just thought it might make a good business."