A South Korean grand master on the art of the perfect soy sauce

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/21/without-time-there-is-no-flavour-a-south-korean-grand-master-on-the-art-of-the-perfect-soy-sauce

103•n1b0m•1d ago

Comments

0cf8612b2e1e•6h ago

How would traditional taste to someone who has spent their life on mass produced kikoman?

thfuran•6h ago

Salty

LarsAlereon•5h ago

Kikkoman has a double-fermented soy sauce in their product line, brewing starts with their regular soy sauce instead of salt water. The flavor is much deeper and more complex, it's actually less salty than regular soy sauce.

interestica•4h ago

Have they thought about triple fermenting? Quadruple?

dfxm12•5h ago

Another commentor suggests this is more like tamari than soy sauce. If it is, expect a similar but more intense flavor and an especially long after taste. It's hard to describe the more intense flavor. It's like if you only taste soy sauce with the center of your tongue, you taste tamari with the tip, center and sides.

GloriousKoji•5h ago

I grew up on kikkoman, view it as the soy sauce equivalent of Heinz ketchup or Best Foods/Hellmans mayonnaise and still cook with it all the time. But after tasting a wide variety of soy sauce I would describe kikkoman's profile as salty, metallic and stout-beer like. The fancier soy sauces seem less salty (despite similar amounts of sodium) and can have varying notes of oyster sauce, seafood, sweetness, coffee, molasses and MSG.

etblg•4h ago

Are there any brands of soy sauce that could be commonly (even if its in an Asian market) found in the states that you would recommend?

tpm•4h ago

One that we use at home and could be available is the Sempio 'green' soy sauce with 25% less salt.

https://en.sempio.com/product/soysauce/view/605

shawn_w•1h ago

Pearl River Bridge makes pretty good Chinese style soy sauces and seems readily available, at least in the PNW. I use the light and dark sauces a lot in cooking.

AdmiralAsshat•2h ago

I started buying Kikkoman's "whole bean" soy sauce (I don't remember what it's called in Japanese: maroyaka?), because I found a local Asian mart carried it, and it was reasonably priced. Seems you can find it on Amazon these days, even:

https://www.amazon.com/Kikkoman-Maroyaka-Sauce-33-8-Ounce-Pa...

Haven't compared it side-by-side with the normal stuff, but anecdotally it tasted a little more mellow to my palette, and I will probably continue using it moving forward when my 1L bottle runs out.

steveBK123•2h ago

Not sure about using Heinz ketchup as an example. To me there are cheap ketchups that taste worse, and fancy yuppie ketchups that taste different for 2-5x the price, but nothing really tastes genuinely better.

Ketchup is like a staple unobjectionable thing to stock in the fridge for kids/guests/comfort. Stocking a weird one kind of defeats the purpose.

I'd rather try various steak / bbq / teriyaki / whatever sauces that set out to be categorically different.

Spooky23•1h ago

Yes! Heinz is coke. Hunts is Pepsi. Everything else is usually lesser.

steveBK123•1h ago

Yes for me theres a whole variety of low-brow staple packaged processed foods I think we've all sort of imprinted upon a certain flavor profile growing up.

I'd rather explore entirely other flavors/categories than spend 4x on some fancy knockoff to signal I'm low brow high end. Extremely diminishing returns, and mostly just tastes different.

I don't need a $4 replacement for a Coke or a $5 Mac-n-cheese or a $10 bottle of ketchup.

Honestly we should all be buying less of these processed foods, not going further upmarket with them.

badc0ffee•57m ago

Don't forget French's (is it the RC Cola of ketchups?)

jt2190•4h ago

Kikkoman USA has been brewing a lighter soy sauce in Wisconsin for the U.S. market for a few decades while now. It’s what most people in the U.S. think of when they hear “Kikkoman”.

Specialty markets sell imported Kikkoman products, such as “traditionally brewed” soy sauce which tastes stronger. Note that “stronger” doesn’t mean “better”: Asian consumers are used to using different styles of soy sauce as they see fit. U.S. consumers still largely view soy sauce as a single thing with no variation except maybe “low sodium”. Definitely worth exploring the different varieties.

skrtskrt•3h ago

Try Pearl River Bridge Light soy sauce. Is the default recommended light soy sauce for a lot of asian cooking, and easy to find.

You'll like it better than the harsh flavor of Kikkoman

jihadjihad•6h ago

So is it like tamari? Seems to be made from fermented soybean paste, which is how tamari is made too (byproduct of miso paste).

Most of the soy sauce you encounter in the US has wheat, while in Japan (and seemingly South Korea) there's no wheat added.

Personally once I switched to tamari I never went back to "regular" soy sauce, the flavor is quite a bit richer and more versatile in cooking, in my opinion.

alistairSH•5h ago

I was under the impression that traditional Japanese soy sauce (shoyu, not tamari) also contains wheat (close to 50/50 ratio) - it's used to help start the fermentation.

mlinhares•5h ago

It does, when it doesn't that's when you call it tamari.

AlotOfReading•5h ago

Tamari is "low wheat" rather than specifically "no wheat". Many manufacturers (particularly when selling to Western markets) will simply take the extra steps to expand the market.

least•5h ago

> Most of the soy sauce you encounter in the US has wheat, while in Japan (and seemingly South Korea) there's no wheat added.

This is incorrect with regards to Japan. Shoyu is made with wheat. Tamari is not. Their production process is different.

Kikkoman is the most popular brand in the West AND in Japan, which is a koikuchi shoyu, which is the "standard" shoyu type in Japan. It is made with wheat.

lanfeust6•5h ago

Yes, and Chinese "light soy" is also similar to shoyu.

rjsw•4h ago

The Kikkoman gluten free variant is also labelled as tamari.

steveBK123•2h ago

For me I always have Kikkoman in the fridge (especially because thats what wife grew up with) as the staple soy sauce. I like to dabble in having 1-2 other variants in the fridge at once, but they can tend to have too strong a flavor for some peoples taste. Or certain variants are best with certain dishes, etc.

molf•57m ago

This is the first time I hear about keeping soy sauce in the fridge. Is this common?

pcurve•5h ago

Good question... I think they're pretty different in taste and how they're made (which is why they taste so different)

Miso and "dwen jang" taste very different because miso is usually mixed with soybean and rice, whereas dwen jang is all soybean. They are also aged differently. Miso is packed into more air tight container, whereas dwen jang is shaped into a block, hung outside to air dry.

t3rra•1h ago

The block to hang up outside for air drying is called 메주 (meju) which is form before made into 된장 (dwenjang). There is more process involved to make it into dwenjang. Actually from that meju we make daenjang and soy sauce.

squidsoup•59m ago

I've really come to appreciate daenjang more than Japanese miso over time. It has funkier, earthier but arguably less refined taste than Japanese miso.

thinkingtoilet•4h ago

Same. Tamari seems to have a much richer flavor than soy sauce. I would recommend others try it a replacement.

bananalychee•3h ago

Western tastes favor intense flavors, so tamari may provide better balance than standard (koikuchi) soy sauce in that sense, but in Japanese cooking, "richness" is not necessarily a desirable characteristic, and tamari would overwhelm many dishes when substituted for koikuchi in similar amounts. Reprocessed (sai-shikomi) soy sauce, made by fermenting soy sauce twice, is considered a middle ground between koikuchi and tamari in terms of richness and is popular for dipping. But there is also a relatively wide range of flavor within the koikuchi category, and the US-made Kikkoman sauce that many people are familiar with is not very flavorful.

fermentation•2h ago

Once I had to switch to tamari due to a celiac diagnosis, I found it was one of the few things that actually tastes better without gluten. I think most of the world would enjoy soy sauce made without wheat more if they tried it.

Also, most soy sauce in Japan absolutely has wheat unfortunately.

tuna74•1h ago

Almost all wheat based soy sauces has such a low gluten content that they can be seen as gluten free.

squidsoup•1h ago

> Most of the soy sauce you encounter in the US has wheat, while in Japan (and seemingly South Korea) there's no wheat added.

My favourite jang is made from fermented wheat and soy - chunjang. Chunjang is the star ingredient in one of the most delicious noodle dishes ever conceived, Jjajangmyeon.

NelsonMinar•3h ago

Fermentation is such wonderful technology. It both preserves and makes things more delicious.

carabiner•3h ago

It also makes things rotten. The difference between spoilage and fermentation/aging is whether humans like the result at the end.

tough•3h ago

Same could be said of fire and burnt food

dlisboa•3h ago

The difference is whether humans get ill or not.

charcircuit•57m ago

People get ill from alcohol, yet it's called fermentation.

algorias•54m ago

No, people get ill from excessive quantities of alcohol.

literalAardvark•19m ago

Acetaldehyde is always toxic, so no, they always get sick, just less sick.

ceejayoz•2h ago

The line between spoiled and fermented… blurs, at times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl

Carrok•2h ago

What point are you even trying to make? The difference between gone bad and fermented is pretty obvious, but fine, don’t eat anything fermented if you like.

I’ll be over here enjoying cheese, kimchi, beer, miso, pickles, sauerkraut, etc etc etc

soperj•2h ago

chocolate

sho_hn•1h ago

TIL! I had no idea chocolate-making involves fermentation. Turns out fermenting the beans is highly involved in producing the characteristic flavor.

bpicolo•1h ago

Coffee, similarly

montebicyclelo•1h ago

> The difference between spoilage and fermentation/aging is whether humans like the result at the end

Is not whether it makes humans unwell quite an important factor..

nkrisc•12m ago

And veggies and meat begin decaying the moment they die. So what?

The difference between spoilage and fermentation is whether it’s spoiled.

talkingtab•10m ago

What is fermentation really? It is a process whereby bacteria et al. process a food source, breaking it down. And the same process goes on inside your gut. Ouch, now there is spoilage for you!

There is at least some research that says fermented foods have some benefits including reducing inflammation. My personal guess based on subjecting myself to more and more fermenting foods is that much of the obesity and many of the common health issues have to do with not eating enough fermenting foods. Just a guess based on a sample of one.

bobsmooth•18m ago

So much of human society relies on the byproducts of other organisms. Pickles, bread, antibiotics.

ge96•1h ago

It's interesting they mention charcoal purification, there is this plant that Japanese people eat (like wild green tubes with leaves) and they soak it in water with wood ash from a fire.

vasusen•1h ago

I believe (more likely, chatgpt believes) this plant is Warabi. I didn't know it was processed with charcoal purification!

The process sounds similar to how I use something acidic to process the toxins from Taro leaves before eating them.

ge96•1h ago

Yeah that looks right, long tubes. Another one I see a guy foraging/eating is a big leaf called "strawberry something" and he batters it up/fries it, interesting.

konfusinomicon•1h ago

I delved into the world of soy sauce a few years back and id say if your looking to go beyond kikkoman, or god forbid that swill they call la choy, go for kimlan. super special, I-Jen (for something a little different), light, or aged..pearl river bridge isn't too bad either just watch out for brands with a bunch of added chemicals in the ingredients

getnormality•22m ago

Pearl River Bridge has a seasoned soy sauce that's been my constant for over a decade.

Claude 4

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A South Korean grand master on the art of the perfect soy sauce

Comments

Claude 4

Mozilla to shut down Pocket on July 8

Show HN: Defuddle, an HTML-to-Markdown alternative to Readability

That fractal that's been up on my wall for 12 years

Does Earth have two high-tide bulges on opposite sides? (2014)

How to cheat at settlers by loading the dice (2017)

Loading Pydantic models from JSON without running out of memory

Trade Secrecy in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory (2009)

Improving performance of rav1d video decoder

Fast Allocations in Ruby 3.5

Launch HN: WorkDone (YC X25) – AI Audit of Medical Charts

When good pseudorandom numbers go bad

Problems in AI alignment: A scale model

I Built My Own Audio Player

Show HN: SQLite JavaScript - extend your database with JavaScript

Planetfall

We’ll be ending web hosting for your apps on Glitch

The Annotated Kolmogorov-Arnold Network (Kan)

Show HN: Hsdlib – A C Library for Vector Similarity with SIMD Acceleration

A South Korean grand master on the art of the perfect soy sauce

Practicing graphical debugging using visualizations of the Hilbert curve

Async from scratch 3: Pinned against the wall

Research Uncovers Parthenon Spectacular Lighting Effects for Athena in Antiquity

Trump administration halts Harvard's ability to enroll international students

Near-infrared spatiotemporal color vision enabled by upconversion contact lenses

Adventures in Symbolic Algebra with Model Context Protocol

The Next Abstraction

Show HN: DockFlow – Switch between multiple macOS Dock layouts instantly

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