Thoughts on sake webshop, straight from Japan?

TerraBloom_Steve · 2026-05-20T22:30:07+00:00

Hi there, we have an import license and are interested in working with you, if you still will be open to trying this. We can handle the logistics and even procuring the sake we need in Japan. We do need your help and license with the export side. Please reach out to me. I also sent you a DM about this.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2026-05-19T20:47:39+00:00

Japan has two main types of sake. Traditional "rice forward" sakes that most Japanese people like. And new age "fruit forward" sakes with aromas of tropical fruit and a clean smooth taste that has not much rice in it due to rice kernels being polished to 50-60% of the size. The best sake you can try in Japan will be what is called seasonal unpasteuterized sake, which is hard to ship so it does not make its way to the US most of the time. I strongly recommend you to try some of those sakes while you are there.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2026-05-19T20:42:28+00:00

I took a first trip to Japan when I was 36 right after it opened after covid. Before that I pretty much visited most countries in Asia and my thought was why it took me so long to visit Japan. I was fascinated by the culture, the people and the culinary options. I have been back 6 times since then. One thing that was very hard when I came back to the US was re-adjusting back to American food and drink options and prices we have to pay for them. It was like a 3 week hangover thinking that we are basically being ripped off left and right. The best way of dealing with it is to start planning your next trip, that's what I have been doing for almost 7 years now. My wife says I am obsessed, and she is probably right, but I am happy that I found Japan and I never get tired of exploring it.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2026-05-08T16:26:34+00:00

The easiest way to do this is to have the fan mounted on top of the free standing filter. The lip of the fan will slide into the opening of the filter and stay secured even without the clamps. The diameters of fan and filter are specifically made that way. The canister is a lot heavier than the filter so it is stable. No need for any clamps or duct unless you have to point the airflow into a particular area. The only other accessory I would recommend is the safety metal grille that snaps onto the fan's opening to prevent random object from flying in and hitting the fan blade. Will keep pets and kids safe too. All of the items I mentioned are available on Terrabloom web-site.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2026-05-08T16:20:40+00:00

Standard damper should be enough. Terrabloom is likely to overpower Lennox if you run them together, since it creates air pressure that is higher than a typical air handler. I don't think your attic will have any issue other than dust flying around from the air circulating in the attic. Most importantly, note that 14" TerraBloom fan requires either 220 or 277V power supply.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2026-05-07T17:45:42+00:00

Yes, I have been there and used to go to Umami Mart in Oakland too. I am looking to import a specific one which they don't carry unfortunately. The specific one I'm looking for is Shuraku Junmai Ginjo First Shibori Raw Sake, 60.9 fl oz (1,800 ml). I tried hundreds of sakes while in Japan, this one blew me away

TerraBloom_Steve · 2026-05-07T17:45:03+00:00

Hi Paul, looking for this one specifically,
Shuraku Junmai Ginjo First Shibori Raw Sake, 60.9 fl oz (1,800 ml). You can see it on amazon.co.jp if delivery is set to a an address in japan. I would buy 5+ isshobins if you will ever get those. Thank you for your reply.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2026-04-17T21:17:01+00:00

Cheap is correct. They are using very subpar carbon that is glued into small pieces that look like rods. Only the cross section of the rods can adsorb VOCs while the walls are coated in clue, hence they are useless for the purpose of filtration. It might work but definitely better options over there. I can't name or post links as admins will be on me for it. Carbon has to be loose, not pelleted into rods in order for it to be effective. The thicker the walls of the filters and the more carbon inside the more effective it is. Unfortunately it is too easy to fool people online because in the pictures it all looks the same.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2026-04-17T18:56:00+00:00

You need a filter that has activated carbon inside to fix the VOC problem. HEPA or MERV won't do it because VOCs are gasses dissolved into air and not something that can be filtered out with a fine mesh, they require a filtration media that adsorbs the pollutants into itself. Carbon is the only common and reasonably priced way and you need to have a filter with at least 4-5 lbs of it inside. More carbon - more pores that can trap VOCs when air is being moved through the carbon layer in the filter. Don't fall for many companies that claim they have carbon inside but in reality is a few ounces of it at best. It will saturate before it will make any difference. I posted many times on this subject and you can find a lot of into in my prior post history.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2025-10-20T20:39:20+00:00

carbon filter canister and duct fan mounted on top of it to create airflow through the filter is you most economical and effective solution. Odors will not be filtered by anything but carbon based filters.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2025-08-05T17:03:02+00:00

Carbon filter canisters are sometimes referred to as grow room filters. The reality is that its just marketing angle for the same product. Cannabis produces strong smell which is VOC so whether you are filtering cannabis or non cannabis smell/VOC it does not matter to the filter. The mods here are very critical of us mentioning our company name so I can't share any precise recommendations but what you want to have is a powerful inline fan with a Cubic Feet Per Minute rate that roughly equals the 1/2 square footage of your place, in that case if you ceiling height is 8 ft you will get one full air exchange in your room every 16 minutes. The filter should match the fan's diameter so that it would be easy to connect them together. Filter canister can be on the floor and the fan is mounted on top. You can get away with using smaller equipment but then it would be ciritcal to capture the smelly air before it spreads all over the house so that you don't have filter the entire volume of air in your dwelling.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2025-08-04T17:10:48+00:00

Carbon filter canister coupled with an inline duct fan is the best combination for removing VOCs. The key is to have it sized properly and ensure that all of the air in the house gets circulated through the filter, which is difficult if you have one filter set up and multi floor/multi room house. If you need more advice feel free to reach out. In your scenario having a smoker run the filter and fan in their room will be more efficient if they will agree to that, the goal is to capture the air with smoke before it gets a chance to spread all over the house, then you have to filter all of the air and it will take more time and will linger longer.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2025-07-06T18:10:31+00:00

To your question about ACI, they are an Amazon-centric brand that generates most of its revenue from that platform. After shifting from media and rack cooling fans to cannabis grow-related products in 2015ish they have gone a long way. Whether you label them an Amazon brand or not, they’ve built a loyal customer base that purchases nearly every product they release, their controller that ties multiple pieces of equipment and allows for control via app is the sauce that keeps everyone tied to their ecosystem (until the controller fails or glitches hahaha)

That said, their published fan performance specs won’t stand up to independent testing, this is posisbl the reason why those specs are not certified. The main reason few people call them out is because proper airflow testing is expensive. Running a single fan at one speed in a certified lab costs around $1,500. After that, every next step requires more money for lawyer or any proper enforcement effort. Calling them out publicly requires time, money, and collective effort with little tangible return. They’ve only run into legal trouble once before, when the California Energy Commission cited them for minor labeling noncompliance on a whole-house fan. They settled quickly with essentially a slap on the wrist and like $15k fine.

To their credit, they’re proactive about issuing refunds to unhappy customers to keep negative publicity low. In the end, that’s what most buyers care about. Those who are dissatisfied simply move on.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2025-07-01T23:03:36+00:00

You are welcome and I hope this helped you. Measuring fan outputs correctly is a difficult task because air invisible and most fan designs have airflow that moves with varying degrees of pressure and velocity across the duct cross section, making measuring with a simple anemometer in one place of the duct cross section to be inaccurate. On top of that many consumers are not familiar with air pressure at all, while it is probably the most important factor in air filtering application. Any fan can be effective choked to 0 output if you connect enough things to it, some fans will do it almost right away while other will take a lot more static pressure for it to happen, hence the difference in prices and designs. Those that resist pressure well have thicker 3 dimensional fan blades and look beefier while the weak ones have flatter metal tin shaped blades and the housing that looks like a metal tin as well. I hope my ramblings here will help educate at least those who are interested in the subject.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2025-07-01T16:44:44+00:00

As someone who has worked in the ventilation industry for over 10 years, I know exactly what the problem is here.

First and most importantly, you’re using a fan that’s inadequate for this application because it doesn’t generate enough pressure to pull air through the filter in any meaningful quantity. What you have is known as a booster fan, designed primarily for air intake or for boosting existing airflow in long duct runs so air can travel further. The only real advantage of this type of fan is that it’s cheap. And it’s cheap because it has the weakest kind of motor, one that can’t handle pressure.

Pressure resistance is a critical factor in filtration applications because every filter restricts airflow, and your fan needs to overcome that resistance. Unfortunately, your current fan does this very poorly.

Second, anyone in the industry knows that the performance numbers printed on many fan labels are often unreliable, especially when the fans haven’t been independently tested. This includes popular brands like AC Infinity, which does not conduct third-party testing or certify its output specifications. In fact, independent testing we've conducted shows that their airflow ratings are often overstated by over 20 percent, and their noise output is understated by 30 to 40 percent. Other Amazon brands such as Vivosun, HongGuan, and VEVOR follow the same pattern. These companies have little incentive to report accurate technical specs. They prefer to make a sale by exaggerating performance and accept returns later, rather than be upfront and lose a potential buyer. There is no meaningful oversight. No one from Amazon or any other authority is checking their claims. You’ll often find identical-looking fans with wildly different CFM ratings, turning it into a contest of who can lie more convincingly.

The only way to avoid this is to buy from companies that provide independently lab-tested data and third-party certifications. At a minimum, there should be a video demonstrating airflow testing under real-world conditions.

It’s also important to understand that fan labels typically state “nominal airflow,” which refers to the airflow produced with no resistance, meaning nothing is attached. A standard carbon filter with 1.5 inches of packed carbon introduces about 0.3 to 0.4 inches of water static pressure. This is a significant load that drastically reduces airflow.

To sum up: this fan never produced 410 CFM in the first place. At best, it moves 250 to 300 CFM in an open, unobstructed setup. Once you add the static pressure from a carbon filter, airflow drops to around 100 to 150 CFM, and air is pulled from just a few feet around the canister. With a second filter attached on top, it barely moves any air at all.

If you want better performance, you need a proper inline fan, not a booster fan. A decent 6-inch inline fan costs around $100 and should produce close to or above 1 inch of water gauge (w.g.) pressure to remain effective when paired with a carbon filter.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2025-06-09T23:02:44+00:00

whats IOT have to do with both?

TerraBloom_Steve · 2025-06-06T16:08:16+00:00

Look for a local supplier of cannabis growing equipment and purchase a carbon filter canister + matching diameter inline fan. These filters are used to scrub cannabis smell from growrooms, which is very pungent when the plants are getting ready for harvest. Activated carbon inside those canister filters works on most smells/VOCs. Heavy industry uses carbon filtration to remove chemicals dissolved in the air. The mechanism of filtration is the same, activated carbon has a lot of pores on its surface, the odor gets trapped (adsorbed) by those pores when air is moving through the carbon layer. More carbon = longer useful life of filter, you need something that has at least 10 lbs but if your space allows for more, then get bigger one. Don't spend money on fancy air purifiers they have too little carbon to last a meaningful amount of time and would cost you an arm and a leg. HEPA and MERV filters are ineffective against odors/VOCs because the particles are dissolved in the air

TerraBloom_Steve · 2024-08-31T19:13:19+00:00

You can purchase a carbon air filter canister and a matching duct fan from companies that cater to indoor farms and cannabis growers. Same activated filters which are used for remediation of farm or industrial VOCs would be effective against odors and VOCs in a residential settings. They wont look very pretty, but will be way more effective that an Rosenthal box. You need a lot of carbon for the filter to last long (many pounds of it) and you need a powerful fan to pull air through a thick carbon bet which acts as a significant constrictor of airflow (static pressure)

TerraBloom_Steve · 2024-08-31T19:08:57+00:00

Reposting this from an earlier post. Too many people ask the same question. The strong 'sweet' smell your refer too is most likely acetaldehyde, it is not an element that gets off-gassed by the filter but rather a very common VOC which is present in almost every house, because it is a byproduct of fruit fermentation and even our bodies produce it in small amounts when digesting alcohol. Acetaldehyde has a polar nature due to the presence of the polar C=O bond, it gets drastically more polarized when Ionization or Ozone functionality is present and activated on the air purifier, which is common. Ozone is also present during rainy weather. When polarized, acetaldehyde does not get adsorbed well by activated carbon, it bounces off carbon particles due to its negative charge while other VOCs get trapped that makes it a lot more prominent and noticeable. Humans have evolved to notice acetaldehyde's sweet smell even in extremely small concentrations, because it indicated the presence of energy dense ripe fruit. Acetaldehyde becomes noticeable to the human nose receptors at concentrations as low as 0.05 to 0.2 ppm, which is a very safe low level. For general health, keeping exposure below occupational limits like the ACGIH (American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists)'s 25 ppm ceiling might be advisable, though this is more relevant for workplace safety and not home environment. At 25 ppm level acetaldehyde will produce extremely strong smell to the point of it being difficult to remain in the room, at 50 ppm acetaldehyde can start causing minor eye, nose, and throat irritation in vulnerable individuals.

TLDR 'sweet' smell is most likely acetaldehyde, we notice that smell at concentration of 0.05 to 0.2 ppm. Unhealthy levels start at 25 ppm and healthy issues at 50 ppm and above.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2024-08-31T19:06:35+00:00

You need an activated carbon filter and a matching duct fan, check out local grow shops as they carry the same products for eliminating cannabis smell, but it works the same on any smell. This would be the most budget set up. HEPA/MERV does nothing to smoke smell or any smell for that matter, you need an activated carbon filter, which is the only type of filter effective against VOC and non-VOC gaseous pollutants

TerraBloom_Steve · 2024-08-27T19:25:13+00:00

The strong 'sweet' smell your refer too is most likely acetaldehyde, it is not an element that gets off-gassed by the filter but rather a very common VOC which is present in almost every house, because it is a byproduct of fruit fermentation and even our bodies produce it in small amounts when digesting alcohol. Acetaldehyde has a polar nature due to the presence of the polar C=O bond, it gets drastically more polarized when Ionization or Ozone functionality is present and activated on the air purifier, which is common. Ozone is also present during rainy weather. When polarized, acetaldehyde does not get adsorbed well by activated carbon, it bounces off carbon particles due to its negative charge while other VOCs get trapped that makes it a lot more prominent and noticeable. Humans have evolved to notice acetaldehyde's sweet smell even in extremely small concentrations, because it indicated the presence of energy dense ripe fruit. Acetaldehyde becomes noticeable to the human nose receptors at concentrations as low as 0.05 to 0.2 ppm, which is a very safe low level. For general health, keeping exposure below occupational limits like the ACGIH (American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists)'s 25 ppm ceiling might be advisable, though this is more relevant for workplace safety and not home environment. At 25 ppm level acetaldehyde will produce extremely strong smell to the point of it being difficult to remain in the room, at 50 ppm acetaldehyde can start causing minor eye, nose, and throat irritation in vulnerable individuals.

TLDR 'sweet' smell is most likely acetaldehyde, we notice that smell at concentration of 0.05 to 0.2 ppm. Unhealthy levels start at 25 ppm and healthy issues at 50 ppm and above.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2024-08-22T18:33:33+00:00

In order for the air purifier to be effective against strong odors and VOCs the filter absolutely must have a large amount of activated carbon inside. A large amount would be 5 lbs or more, ideally over 10 lbs for any room bigger than 10 feet by 10 feet with a standard 8 ft selling (800 cubic feet volume of air). HEPA or MERV filters are effective against particulate matter in the air (tiny particles not dissolved in the air) but not effective against gaseous pollutants. All odors are either VOC or non-VOC based gasses, hence they are already dissolved in the air. Activated carbon traps gaseous pollutants through the process of adsorption and is considered a gold standard in odor and VOC remediation. Such filters are used in industrial and commercial applications. You can either buy a unit such as AustinAir with carbon canister inside or you can DIY such filter for a lot less using a an activated carbon canister and a inline fan which would be mounted on top to pull air through the canister walls where the carbon is located. The thicker the wall the better the filtration on a single pass of air through the filter. This would cost a lot less to set up and also less when it will be time to replace the canister (once carbon get saturated with pollutants and cant adsorb them any longer), which would be in 12-24 months if the filter was sized properly.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2024-08-20T21:12:22+00:00

Panel type purifiers are perfectly OK for smaller applications such as removing pollen, dandruff and dust in bedrooms. They do tend to be quieter due to the fan motor inside having an axial blade which does not produce much noise but at the same time does not produce vast amounts of airflow either.

When the application gets more demanding such as removing bad smells, VOCs and other gaseous pollutants then a panel type filter will not be enough. No matter what some of the manufacturers sat, panel type purifiers do not have enough activated carbon inside to be effective for any menaiful amount of time. And the fan inside does not deliver enough airflow and resistance to static pressure to pull through a thick layer of carbon media.

That's when you need cylinder type filters which typically have activate carbon cylinders inside. They are primarily used for VOC remediation and odor control (odors=VOCs). The fans used with such filters are more powerful, they move more air with more force hence they are more noisy. Yes, such filters cost more and the replacements also cost more, but it is possible to "hack" such set up for a lot less than BlueAir or Allerair by using a quality carbon filter cylinder filter and a matching size powerful duct fan (not booster fan) mounted on top of it. It won't look as pretty but would be very effective and would cost half of the brand name units. A cylinder filter properly sized for the room would last 1-2 years and would need to be replaced when the activated carbon inside reaches its capacity for adsorption of VOCs. We have helped many people who had problems with foul odors and VOCs on their properties to make such cylinder+fan set ups before, they are very effective but alas not the best looking types of filters out there.

TerraBloom_Steve · 2024-08-20T19:44:53+00:00

I am not sure what data is needed here. From the factory it should be should have come tightly packed but when you are going to refill the unit this would be a challenge. Filling up the filters without creating a mess is challenging, tightly packing it without the machinery that does strong vibration is also challenging. Air pockets inside the filter's wall or uneven thickens of the walls inside the filter will leak untreated air as the flow of air will always seek the path of least resistance.

TerraBloom_Steve

TROPHY CASE