Beverage-maker Ajinomoto AGF Inc. will launch trial sales of coffee made from beans grown on Tokunoshima, an island in Kagoshima Prefecture, in around 2022.
The Ajinomoto Co. subsidiary aims to release the product in a limited quantity in 2023, the company said Tuesday.
AGF plans to sell the product made from the fairly rare Japanese coffee beans as high-quality “specialty coffee.”
In June 2017, AGF jointly kicked off a production support project with major trading house Marubeni Corp., the island’s town of Isen and the coffee producers association of Tokunoshima.
The project encourages people to join the coffee-growing business and promotes the expansion of the growing area. It encourages producers to select coffee beans that reflect the natural features of Tokunoshima and take measures to prevent damage from typhoons.
“The quality is good enough to call the product premium coffee,” AGF President Hideaki Shinada told reporters Tuesday, showing his eagerness for early commercialization of the product.
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