Levain Bakery
The pioneer bakery of domestic wheat and home-cultivated natural leaven bread in Japan.
In 1982, Pierre Buch (Macrobian) and Yasuhisa Tsunoda (President of Honbic) set up the Levein Bakery in Chofu, Tokyo. They started selling hard bread such as sourdough bread made with home-cultivated natural leaven. In 1984, Mikio Koda became the owner of the company, which became independent from Honbic, and in 1989 opened a retail shop in Tomigaya, Tokyo, in 1992 a café, Le Chalet, and in 2004 a shop in Ueda, Nagano.
The shop has produced many bakers and established home-cultivated natural leaven bread as a part of the culture in Japan.
(Levain means "natural leaven" in French)

the type of natural leaven:
1. Sourdough (the yeast doesn’t contain in any bread at all / pain au levain naturel)

Official website
http://levain317.jugem.jp/
Address
2-43-13 Tomigaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
4-7-31 Chuo, Ueda-shi, Nagano

Shoot & Edit : Reiya Watanabe

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chapter
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0:00 introduction
0:19 making bread
10:10 breakfast
12:38 milling with a stone mill
13:37 lunchtime
13:53 cultivating leaven
14:42 reviewing time

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Mikio Koda
Mikio Koda, the owner of the bakery Levain Bakery, was born in Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture in 1949. After working as a teacher and various jobs, he became a staff of Levain Bakery and acquired it in 1984.
In 2001, he published the book "Levain's Natural Leaven Bread", which has become a long-seller book for making bread using home-cultivated natural leaven.

Pierre Buch
A natural leaven French baker-master, born in Morocco in a family who owned a wine farm. He was diagnosed with polio at the age of two and his legs have been paralyzed since then. In 1959, due to the ravages of the Algerian War, his family moved to a small village in southern France near Avignon.
When he was a teenager he turned to Oriental Philosophy, became macrobiotic, and in 1976 started a macrobiotic restaurant in Avignon but there were not so many customers.
During the management of the restaurant, he became very interested in MISO (a fermented food made from soybeans, koji-malt, and salt ) and came to Japan in 1978 to study MISO. He tried to negotiate with an artisanal miso maker in Tokyo but he got turned away because of his disability.
At the same time, in parallel with this, as he couldn’t find a natural leaven bread to eat, he started to bake at home his own bread with locally grown wheat he stone-milled and fermented with a starter of raisins and apple.
While in Japan he needed to earn a living and so he started working as a French teacher. One of his French students, Yasuhisa Tsunoda, the president of Honbic (a company that sells baking machinery), found a kindred spirit in Pierre Buch and established the "Levain Bakery" in 1982 with him to bake and wholesale hard bread made with home-cultivated natural leaven.
At "Levain Bakery", the bread was raised with a starter made from raisins and stone-milled flour.
This method was completely unusual even in France, as the ordinary bakeries use whole wheat flour as a starter for making natural leaven even now.
After leaving the company due to health matters, he set up Nova company in 1985, an importer of organic dried fruits and nuts.
Until 1999 the company also produced bread (the pilar of the company) made from Japan-grown, pesticide-free wheat, home stone-milled flour, and a few natural different leavens which were delivered nationwide.

At present, he continues his research at his home in Nasu, Tochigi, in pursuit of the ideal baker's leaven.

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