Jorinji Miso

Earnest Yoshida didn't grow up thinking he'd spend his life making miso. He grew up in Portland as a third-generation Japanese American, eating the miso soup his mother made at home. The idea that miso would one day become his life's work wouldn't have made any sense to the kid he was.

It was Sumiko who started it. In 1995, after she and Earnest moved from Japan to Portland, she began making miso in their home kitchen — not because she'd planned to go into business, but because good handcrafted miso was simply impossible to find in Portland, and she needed it. So she made it herself, the way her mother had, and it was so good that her friends said: why not sell it?

She named it Jorinji — a variation of Heirinji Temple, near her hometown in Japan, where monks had been making miso for centuries. "Success Forest Temple." It was a name for something she hoped would last.

For nearly two decades, Earnest and Sumiko built Jorinji together. Then in the autumn of 2013, Sumiko suddenly passed away. What kept Earnest going, in part, was a single email from a customer: "Please don't stop making Jorinji Miso." He kept making miso.

Then in 2015, at the Portland Farmers Market, Earnest met Yuri — who had grown up making miso every year with her grandparents in Toyama, Japan. Earnest and Yuri are now married and run Jorinji together. Their miso is unpasteurized — alive, fermenting slowly over 6 months to 3 years. White miso, red miso, chickpea miso. Each batch a continuation of something Sumiko started in a home kitchen thirty years ago.

From Jorinji's Kitchen

Tonjiru (Pork and Root Veggie Miso Soup)

Shio-Koji Chicken Roast