LINNÉ was founded in 2024 by Shoya Imai as a fermentation collective — a group that treats sake brewing as a starting point for cultivating food culture at large. Backed by over 10 million yen raised through crowdfunding at the end of 2024, LINNÉ works as a phantom brewery, one without a facility of its own, collaborating with established houses to realise sake no one has tasted before.

Its first release, 800 (YAO), is the world's first sake brewed with buckwheat koji. LINNÉ brews it at Choryu Brewery in Yao, Osaka — a house with over a century of ginjo expertise — using koji made from organically grown buckwheat from the Ichikara farm in Ojiya, Niigata. The third lot uses Horinouchi Zairai, a heirloom variety predating modern cultivation. Polishing the rice to 60% draws out a translucent sweetness so the depth of the buckwheat can come forward — a subtractive balance that is elegant at room temperature and, gently warmed, takes on the soft richness of soba-yu.