1.   Because of the lower price of rice in China, Nakatani Shuzo can brew sake at its Tianjin plant for about half the cost of making it in Japan.

2.   Sake is brewed from fermented rice in a process that is said to have been borrowed from the Chinese to make a thick rice wine for the Emperor Ojin.

3.   Foburo incorporates prestigious Japanese sake brewer Konishi Brewing Co., which company officials in Osaka said would be the first Japanese firm to brew sake outside Japan.

4.   The trick, however, is cultivating within the United States the specialty rice needed to brew quality sake.