(LOS ANGELES, CA) June 2019 – Introducing Tippsy, the first digital platform to bring premium sake direct to U.S. consumers straight from Japan via an innovative storefront and monthly sake subscription club.
Tippsy caters to seasoned and new sake consumers alike with the largest online platform for sake in the U.S., featuring over 200 premium skus on an innovative user-interface. The Tippsy Sake Box is likewise the first of its kind, aimed at educating consumers on the different styles and flavors of sake with monthly shipments of three distinct 10oz bottles. The Tippsy Sake Box is attractively packaged and presented, complete with thorough tasting cards, making it a perfect for gift.
Through a streamlined process, Tippsy delivers sake directly to consumers soon after it arrives from Japan, so they get the freshest sake possible at competitive prices. By way of close importer relationships, Tippsy skips the unnecessarily long supply chain of the three tier system that currently causes quality issues on store shelves and high markups at restaurants.
On Tippsy’s site, each sake that is sold features visual metrics to show taste profiles in a manner that is well designed and easy to digest. The labels of every bottle have been decoded with tasting notes and pairing suggestions to make discovery and selection easy and fun. Tippsy’s shopping experience includes immersion into the unique stories of prestigious breweries, some with hundreds of years of history. Tippsy’s range of brands spans popular Ozeki and Hakutsuru, to the premium Dassai, Hakkaisan, Otokoyama and Onikoroshi brands. Customers can shop by taste (light & dry, light & sweet, rich & dry, rich & sweet); price; rice milling rates (junmai, ginjo, daiginjo); and other categories such as Koshu (aged sake), Nigori (unfiltered, cloudy sake), and sparkling sake.
Founder Genki Ito, an MBA graduate of the USC Marshall School of Business with over 10 years of experience in food imports and distribution, saw a void in the market for purchasing sake online. Consumer interest in sake is growing in prestige and demand outside the traditional Japanese restaurant setting. U.S. consumer interest in premium sake is on the rise with sake in general up 6.7% percent in value and 5.3% in volume in 2016 versus 2015 per Nielsen data. Tippsy meets this growing demand by providing a new online service to sell premium sake directly to consumers. Tippsy’s goal is to enhance sake’s reputation as a versatile drink for any occasion and expand sake’s current market of $400 million closer to the wine industry’s $40 billion.
“Sake is so much more than just hot sake or sake bombs. Sake makes for elegant pairings with all kinds of cuisine beyond sushi and Japanese food,” says founder Genki Ito. “New and existing sake buyers alike are under-served due to the lack of selection and insufficient guidance at brick and mortar stores. We aim to change that through our innovative platform and DTC channel, which makes exploring sake easy, fun and approachable by telling unique brand stories and avoiding snobbery.”
TIPPSY SAKE BOX – MONTHLY SAKE SUBSCRIPTION
The Tippsy Sake Box is a monthly sake subscription that is the perfect way for curious consumers to explore the world of sake. Each box contains three 10oz mini bottles of sake that represent different styles and distinct flavors. Ninety percent of consumers who have experienced sake at restaurants never bought a bottle at retail due to the lack of intriguing inventory, as well as lack of knowledge in potential pairing opportunities outside of Japanese cuisine. The Tippsy Sake Box is the perfect anecdote to the intimating and esoteric nature of sake, providing an approachable way to experience sake monthly. Consumers can easily change shipping intervals or cancel at any time. The Tippsy Sake Box costs $59 per month, with the option to prepay for additional months at a discount.
ABOUT SAKE BREWING
Sake brewing is an intricate process that entails polishing, or “milling,” off of the outer layers of rice kernels. Along the way, the rice starch is converted to sugar which is then fermented. Much goes into the selection of rice varietal, water, milling rate and fermenting and brewing techniques. At least 95 different varieties of sake rice are grown in Japan. Tippsy’s blog provides a wealth of information on sake history, pairings, and brewing techniques.
To learn more about Tippsy and the Tippsy Sake Box, please reach out to evaughen@everlycomm.com.
