How KIKI’s numbers work

How are the five taste axes decided?

Dry ↔ sweet, light ↔ rich, aroma, umami and acidity are each shown on a scale from 0 to 1. They come from the specs breweries and shops publish (SMV, acidity …) and from shop and brewery descriptions.

• When both the SMV (nihonshu-do) and acidity are known, the dry ↔ sweet estimate is calculated from those two.
• Descriptions are read with AI (Gemini), which only picks up what the text says. Nothing is added. The flavour words and serving suggestions come from the same texts.
• Bottles whose taste is only an estimate from their type (grade or base ingredient) are marked “estimated” in the app and are not published on this website.
• In the app, the estimate gets better as users rate bottles.

How are food matches chosen?

Each bottle gets the best matches out of 24 ingredients, cooking styles and seasonings (three groups).

• Fixed rules score them from the type and grade, the making (kimoto / yamahai, nama / genshu, nigori, sparkling, aged …), the shochu base and koji, aging and the taste axes.
• Dishes that shop descriptions name as good matches count too.
• No AI is used for the scoring. It is a guide. Your taste may differ.

What is the value score?

The value score is KIKI’s own index from 0 to 100: the price per 720 ml set against the tone of shop reviews. It is not a rating of the drink.

• Only bottles with at least 5 shop reviews get a value score.
• Four bands: very high, high, average, low.
• Rare bottles that often sell at a premium come out low, because their market price is high.
• The shop review ratings themselves are not shown on this website.

Where do the prices come from?

Offers on Rakuten Ichiba and Yahoo! Shopping are checked every day (each offer about once a day); a few prices come from breweries’ own shops.

• To compare sizes, prices are converted to 720 ml (a 1.8 l bottle: price ÷ 2.5). Multi-packs count per bottle.
• Gift listings (engraved names etc.) and furusato nozei offers are left out; sold-out offers don’t count.
• “Lowest price” is the cheapest offer in stock per 720 ml; the “median” is the middle value.
• Prices on this website are a snapshot of one day, shown with their date on every page. Shops may change them afterwards.

Where do list prices come from?

From the brewery’s own website. Only some breweries publish prices, so only some bottles have one. How far market prices are from the list price is published on the price data page.

Which bottles are on this website?

The KIKI app knows 19,912 bottles. This website only shows those with a real taste profile (not an estimate from the type) and a current price or a brewery list price: 10,038 bottles, published in batches, best-known first (800 so far).

• Data depth is tracked in tiers: silver = collected automatically with spot checks; bronze = mainly the basics (name, maker, type). A fully human-checked “gold” tier comes later.
• Several breweries share a name across prefectures, so makers are told apart by their corporate number (National Tax Agency) and address.
• Duplicate bottles are merged; old page addresses redirect to the kept page.

Who writes the brewery profiles?

Brewery profiles (summary, history, facts, visits) are compiled by AI (Gemini with Google Search) from public web pages; the sources are listed on the page. Breweries have not checked them. Awards come from the official results of the Japan Sake Awards (National Research Institute of Brewing).

What is the match %?

A Premium feature of the app: from your ratings and favourites, it shows how close a bottle’s taste is to what you like. It uses taste only: no prices and no online ratings. Because it is personal, no match numbers appear on this website.

Does KIKI sell alcohol?

No. KIKI does not sell alcohol; it compares shop prices and links to the shop. Some shop links are affiliate links and are marked “PR”. Shops are listed by price per 720 ml, whether a link is an affiliate link or not.