Photo/Illutration Takahide Kobayashi (Photo by Satoshi Kubo)

Takahide Kobayashi’s low tolerance for alcohol led in part to a journey that put his tiny food company in direct competition with the world’s biggest beverage companies.

Kobayashi, now 34, preferred to consume cola at drinking parties. Although the soft drink has become commonplace for most people, Kobayashi became enchanted by the beverage containing kola nut extract.

During his trips to Europe and South America, he made sure to try the different cola products available.

Eventually, he set up a “craft cola” company, called Iyoshi Cola, and he now refers to himself as Kola Kobayashi.

After finishing graduate school, Kobayashi was working for a major ad agency when he began concocting original cola drinks based on a more-than-100-year-old recipe that he had come across online.

His maternal grandfather was a craftsman who produced raw materials for herbal drugs used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Kobayashi drew on documents and tools his grandfather had left in his studio on the banks of the Kandagawa river in Tokyo’s Shimo-Ochiai district to come up with an original cola recipe.

The result was a spicy and complicated tasting beverage.

He named his product Iyoshi Cola, after his grandfather Ryotaro Ito. (The kanji for “Ryo” can also be pronounced “yoshi.”)

Kobayashi uses around 10 spices and citrus fruits, including cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, coriander, kola nuts, lemons and limes, for the product.

He said the processing methods for the individual ingredients matter more than their combinations and mixing ratios.

“You have the options, for example, of adding those ingredients in powder form, processing them into liquid extract, and distilling them,” Kobayashi said. “I am the only person who knows the exact content of my recipe, including how the ingredients should be processed.”

Kobayashi has also included ingredients used in traditional Chinese medicine, such as ginseng, to differentiate his product.

His business, which started out with a food truck, has expanded so much that his cola is now sold at some high-end supermarket chains and at a convenience store chain.

He has also been working to export his product overseas, including to Taiwan.

“Cola is a special drink that’s part of people’s lives,” Kobayashi said. “I hope people will one day be saying: ‘Coca, Pepsi and Iyoshi.’”

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