A South Korean grand master on the art of the perfect soy sauce
32 comments
·May 21, 2025jmyeet
So let me take a detour that I promise will get back to the soy sauce.
Recently New York Magazine came out with an article about so-called "West Village girls" [1]. For anyone unfamiliar, the West Village (and Greenwich Village more broadly) is a part of Manhattan below 14th street that had huge cultural significance int eh 20th century. Many musicians, artists and luminaries lived there for a time. It was the home of the Stonewall riots [2] and is otherwise important to LGTBQ culture.
The West Village girl is pretty much the opposite of all those things. Basic, typically white, posts on IG that "I can't live without my Starbuck's", dresses generically, is chasing her Sex and the City dream, is likely supported by her parents in her 20s after graduating college (if not outright having a trust fund) and probably has hobbies like "travel" and "eating out".
There is a long history of a certain kind of (typically white) people who are devoid of "culture" and move to a place and make it worse by not respecting that culture, like moving above a Mexican restaurant or a bar that's been there for 40 years and geting it shut down for noise. That sort of thing.
This segment is typically obsessed with finding "the best", seeing and being seen at the "best" or just the "hippest" places and so on.
I saw a thing recently about people who travel for an hour plus to find the "best" New York slice. The particular creator explained that these chasers just don't get the point. The point is that you can get good slices pretty much anywhere in NYC. It's ubiquitous. You just don't need to line up for 2 hours at some hole-in-the-wall in Queens or whatever.
And now I'll bring it back to soy sauce.
This seems to fit this obsession of finding or having "the best". For me, the difference between "good" and "the best" for pretty much anything is so marginal that it's never worth paying a huge premium, going terribly out of your way and/or waiting for a long time. That goes for restaurants, food items, wine and pretty much anything.
But every time I see people who obsess over "the best" it always strikes me as so sad, like these chasers just have to have the external validation of being "in the club". I particularly see this with people who are obsessed with Japan, like they look for the absolute best sushi, omikase or whatever but again, I think the point of Japan is you can find good of anything Japanese everywhere, because it's Japan.
I'm happy there are craftsmen who take pride in their craft and their output, be they Japanese teapot makers, calligraphy brush makers or soy sauce producers. And if you get a chance to try such things and appreciate their craft, great. But chasing it always seems so empty.
[1]: https://www.thecut.com/article/nyc-west-village-neighborhood...
badc0ffee
"typically white" - the artists and gay men living in the area 60-30 years ago were "typically white" too. Same with the wealthy middle aged people who moved in 30 years ago and are being replaced with this new, young, temporary crowd.
> There is a long history of a certain kind of (typically white) people who are devoid of "culture" and move to a place and make it worse by not respecting that culture, like moving above a Mexican restaurant or a bar that's been there for 40 years and geting it shut down for noise. That sort of thing.
That Mexican restaurant you're imagining probably replaced an Italian grocery or a Jewish deli, or something else. The demographics change, and that's how the city works.
The "culture" of the West Village has been wealth and high end retail for 30+ years. What happened recently is it got younger, even more homogeneous, and to your point, influencer focused. And I agree that THAT is insidious.
cko
I'm a huge proponent of "good enough" in all aspects of my life so I fully agree. A two-year old used flagship phone is good enough. A cheap Thinkpad is good enough. Most clothes actually actually last a long time, even the cheap ones.
Anything above "pretty good at a reasonable price" has diminishing returns, and it attracts many of the people for whom vanity is the main source of enjoyment.
jihadjihad
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.
least
> 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
Yes, and Chinese "light soy" is also similar to shoyu.
fermentation
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.
alistairSH
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
It does, when it doesn't that's when you call it tamari.
AlotOfReading
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.
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pcurve
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.
thinkingtoilet
Same. Tamari seems to have a much richer flavor than soy sauce. I would recommend others try it a replacement.
bananalychee
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.
0cf8612b2e1e
How would traditional taste to someone who has spent their life on mass produced kikoman?
jt2190
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.
LarsAlereon
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
Have they thought about triple fermenting? Quadruple?
GloriousKoji
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.
AdmiralAsshat
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.
dfxm12
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.
skrtskrt
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
thfuran
Salty
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Fermentation is such wonderful technology. It both preserves and makes things more delicious.