When Ryota Kurokawa graduated from Waseda University in 2014, he had a good idea of the career he didn't want to pursue: He didn't want to put on a white shirt and a dark-colored suit and affix himself to corporate life. He was, however, much less sure of what he did want to do.
For a while Kurokawa, 28, managed a wealthy Australian's property in Niseko, Hokkaido, and worked part-time jobs in Tokyo. "I was having a tough time figuring out what to do," he admits. It was on his father's suggestion that he moved to Kyoto to help him run a nascent coriander wholesale business.
His father had started growing coriander from the family home in Tsu, Mie Prefecture as a side project, but it quickly developed into a business as he found a growing number of restaurants in Nagoya and Kyoto who wanted his product. So the younger Kurokawa pitched in, helping with deliveries and orders from their business base, a former cafe near the Kyoto Imperial Palace.