Sake belongs in your heart.
It's a sappy thing to say, but it's true. Sake lives in my heart. I founded Sunflower Sake as an education-forward shop, tasting room and bar in Portland, Oregon. As a team, we've built a cozy, welcoming space to taste and learn about sake from Japan, our backyard, and beyond.
We're a small, (nerdy) family-run business known for hospitality, deep curation, and a love of the bottles most shops overlook. We specialize in aged sake, namazake, low-intervention and small batch brews, ideally made with local and sustainably-farmed rice. We work with importers we believe in, and we carve our own path.
— Nina, Molly & Team Sunflower
Sunflower works to foster a unique, diverse and creative American sake culture defined by our own traditions, artists, network and environment— inspired and informed by our friends in Japan.
The people behind the counter
Nina Murphy
Nina opened Sunflower to share sake the way she fell for it: one story, one pour, one person at a time. Nina teaches our annual courses, Sun101 and 201, creates all of Sunflower's educational watercolor art, and spends her free time reading increasingly obscure texts on Japanese agriculture and history.
Molly
Our hot-sake specialist. If you want to understand why a bottle sings at 45°C, Molly's your guide. She runs the shop floor with a great ear for what you'll love next, and manages our operational logistics from start to finish. Need a sake pairing for lamb biryani, or egg poriyal? Molly's your best mate.
