It may not have been love at first sight, but a growing enthusiasm for sake among Americans is making the United States an important market for Japanese brewers.
Todd Thompson, a 51-year-old lawyer from San Francisco, remembers first encountering sake as a cheap drink "they would heat up in machines and sell at Japanese restaurants."
"Then, about four years ago, I tried what seemed to me at the time the purist, cleanest drink I had ever had."