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Every now and then, you meet someone so deeply passionate about their craft that it makes you want to raise the bar yourself — that’s the kind of infectious energy Chef Maia brings. In one quiet corner of Bengaluru, there's more than just sake is brewing: there's also Chef Maia’s unwavering dedication. Maia Laifungbam is India’s first certified sake brewer, or touji. Raised in a household where food held great significance, her North Eastern and Goan roots deeply shaped her palate and passion, eventually drawing her towards Japanese cuisine. After eight years of working as a chef, she opened her own Japanese restaurant, Roboto, in Goa, where she first noticed the stark affordability gap when it came to sake in India.
“There was this aura of mystery around sake. I kept wondering why anyone wasn’t doing it here. Being from the North East, there’s already a familiarity in the culture of rice beers and rice wines. I knew that the quality of the rice was good enough to make alcohol, but the consistency had to be tackled.”
Chef Maia Laifungbam
Chef Maia had the raw ingredients — all she needed was the method. So she set her sights on the source. To truly understand sake, she knew she had to go to Japan, where the craft is steeped in centuries of tradition and often passed down through generations. Breaking into that world wasn’t easy. The process spanned eight long months, filled with interviews, statements of purpose, and quiet persistence. Eventually, her journey led her to Kyoto’s Yamamoto Honke Brewery in Fushimi — a region famed for its soft water and elegant, mellow sake.
What followed was a steep and stirring learning curve. Back in India, she began experimenting with local rice varieties, layering her new knowledge onto familiar terrain. While many Indian rice-based ferments rely on rice, water, and wild or cultivated yeast, sake demands a different kind of precision. At its heart is koji — a fermented rice starter that Chef Maia calls “the soul of sake making.” Sprinkled over cooked rice, the koji ferments with water, breaking down starches into sugars that yeast can turn into alcohol. It’s a practice of patience and control — a far cry from the intuitive, hand-measured ways of traditional Indian toddies.
Sake brewing is famously rigorous — it's physically taxing and deeply ritualistic — not something many women, even in Japan, take on. For Chef Maia, sleep is simply not an option during those crucial two days when koji is grown on the rice. The temperature, moisture, and texture are monitored obsessively — every two hours, if not more often. Sake, in its earliest stages, is extremely fragile. To protect its purity, variables are stripped away: no soaps are allowed in the brewery, and every surface is sterilised with alcohol instead.
Most of Chef Maia’s job is making sure that the purity of the sake comes through in its flavours. It's very soft and simple on the palette, because it’s essentially just three ingredients coming together to create this amazing beverage.
Sake mimics everything it interacts with. From the soil the rice is grown in, to the purpose of cultivation. Certain types of rice are specifically grown for sake in Japan, which creates a more preferred differentiation in starch distribution and grain flavour. What makes Chef Maia’s sake stand apart is her use of North East Indian rice varieties that are typically often grown for daily consumption.
“Indian rice is beautiful because it's wild. It’s rawer, and is cultivated more wildly, which leads to a very interesting sake. It takes a little bit more care to make sake from our rice because of the variables in minerals and proteins of the grain, which often also leads to a bolder sake.”
Chef Maia Laifungbam
Chef Maia’s choice to work with regional Indian rice isn’t just practical — it’s intentional. By moving beyond imported sake rice, she makes the brew more accessible and affordable, while also channeling support to local farmers who grow lesser-known indigenous varieties. It’s part of a quiet intention to map the vast and under-celebrated rice landscapes of India, beyond basmati. There’s a clear thread of personal heritage running through Laifungbam’s work, “This comes from a sense of familiarity I’ve had with this culture of rice wines, and this cuisine, and everything in my life coming together for sake, more than intentional choices,” she says.
The future of Maia’s sake looks bright but it's also breaking the 'traditional' rules of sake consumption. To her, sake is beyond just Japanese cuisine.
“It’s like saying tequila can only be had with South American food. Sake is such a delicate and beautiful spirit; it can go with most food and cuisines. I want sake to become a part of our food-loving culture.”
Chef Maia Laifungbam
The way Maia speaks about sake makes it seem like a living thing; like it lives and breathes the way you and I do. I think it does in the sense that it that is constantly changing and evolving. It’s a baby that requires so much care and attention, something that only someone as passionate as Chef Maia can provide. For Chef Maia, it is her purpose and I for one just cannot wait to try India’s first homegrown sake.
You can follow Chef Laifungbam's journey here.
If you enjoyed reading this, here's more from Homegrown:
Sake And Sunshine: India’s New Hotspot For Japanese Cuisine
Delhi’s First Sake Bar Is A Microcosm Of Japanese Culture
Gaijin: Mumbai's Newest Japanese Spot Is A Cultural Confluence Of Reverence & Rebellion
