From the NY Times, an excellent article about sake and the growing interest in America. Imports are way up, retail shops are proliferating and more sake breweries are opening. When Shinobu Kato first tried sake as a young man in Tokyo, it tasted harsh and sharp to him. He hated it. But, he recalls, an older colleague told him that he was drinking cheap, poorly made sake. As he was introduced to better styles, Mr. Kato grew to love it. When he moved to the United States in 2004 to study business at the University of Maryland, he could afford only the sorts of bad sake that had left such a…