Recently, Baltimore Brew found itself being filmed by a six-person news crew from NHK — Japan’s version of the BBC — and this surreal experience, Brew readers, requires more than a Tweet to convey.

There we were, on Memorial Day weekend, in our company cafeteria (well, actually, a North Baltimore kitchen), sitting across the table from author-filmmaker Tatsuya Mori — sort of the Bill Moyers (or perhaps Michael Moore?) of Japan.

Business cards were exchanged, coffee was served, Mori asked us about The Brew and “The Future of Journalism,” the subject of his current project. Somehow, our small, year-old, Baltimore-centric news website had piqued the interest of this rock star journalist, famed for his hard-hitting documentaries on the sarin-gas-wielding Aum Shinrikyo cult.

Mori’s “Aum” films focused on the cult-members’ everyday life and police violence and held a harsh mirror to the conformity of Japanese society and the inanity of its mainstream media, we learned.

We also discovered that his past documentary projects include many other subjects, including the world of wrestling midgets. Clearly, the man has wide-ranging interests, cares about good journalism and has a soft spot for oddballs.

Well, with Baltimore, and The Brew, he had come to the right place.

We almost missed the “URGENT” email from NHK to Baltimore Brew earlier this spring,  overwhelmed as we generally are by a slew of news tips, press releases, Facebook friend requests, Russian spammers and clothing-optional bowling invitations from the Maryland Area Naturist Association. (Oy, we can’t seem to get de-friended from those guys!)

When we finally saw the message, though, we put it together. NHK wanted to do something on The Brew for one of those stories about imperiled journalism. They’d read about us in an October Columbia Journalism Review report called “The Reconstruction of American Journalism” by Leonard Downie Jr. (former executive editor of The Washington Post) and Michael Schudson, a professor at the Columbia School of Journalism.

“I am writing to humbly inquire if there is a possibility that we could visit you for an camera interview and to cover your efforts in Baltimore, Maryland,” wrote Tomoo Sono, researcher, coordinator and translator.

They were coming to the U.S. to film Ground Zero in Manhattan, Downie talking, The Washington Post offices on 15th Street — and us, as far as we could tell.

“Hi, we’re in Times Square!” Sono had said, during one of our cell phone conversations to discuss logistics.

Why there?

“Oh well, you know, it is named for the newspaper!” he replied, laughing and shouting over the sounds of the Square behind him.

Our visit from Sono, Mori and the crew went well but if we tell you too much about our conversation, we’ll scoop them and we wouldn’t want to do that to brother journalists. Suffice it to say they came,  we told them ‘no need to take your shoes off inside,’ they filmed, they met in-house staffer Elizabeth Suman, they shot b-roll and on Saturday we took them with us on a reporting trip to Sparrows Point.

The Brew, as readers know, has had a special interest in the aging steel plant there — its history as a century-old economic engine in Baltimore, its legacy of air and water pollution, its current business troubles, under the latest in a series of owners,  the Russian company,  Severstal.

But what to do, over at “The Point,” with six eager Japanese journalists with only a couple of hours to spare? Well, we put them on a boat (thanks to the kind assistance of some of our sources over there) and gave them a grand view of the mill from the water. They were reluctant at first, but when the boat didn’t sink and they got a post-industrial eyeful, and Brew contributor Mark Reutter gave them a well-informed earful and the captain opened up the throttle for a bouncy, fast, literally hair-raising ride back, they seemed quite satisfied.

“This is much more than we planned,” said Sono, as the crew clambered off the boat, water dripping from their shoes. “We never expected this!”