Yuasa Soy Sauce　[Wakayama]

The Birthplace of Soy Sauce

Yuasa is a small port town on the Kii Strait in Wakayama Prefecture, widely recognized as the birthplace of Japanese soy sauce. During the Kamakura period (13th century), a fermented miso called Kinzanji miso was introduced from China and began evolving in this town. The liquid that separated from the miso during fermentation was found to have a distinctive flavor of its own. That liquid became soy sauce, which would go on to become one of the most essential ingredients in Japanese cuisine.

Yuasa Soy Sauce has been brewing in that same town ever since, carrying forward eight hundred years of fermentation history.

Wooden Barrels and Time

Fermentation at Yuasa begins in winter and takes at least a year and a half. The mash is fermented in large Yoshino cedar barrels, each more than two meters in diameter. The microorganisms that live in the wood play an essential role in the fermentation process, giving the soy sauce its remarkable depth of flavor over time.

The ingredients are whole Japanese-grown soybeans, roasted wheat, and mellow, mineral-rich salt from the Goto Sea. Throughout the process, workers stir the mash by hand while carefully monitoring its development. The result is a soy sauce with a rich aroma and deep, rounded umami.

Tradition and What Comes Next

The fifth-generation owner, Toshiro Niiuri, opens the brewery to visitors and leads hands-on brewing workshops and food education programs. In recent years, Yuasa has also begun brewing soy sauce in Bordeaux, France, in partnership with an established organic winery. There, the soy sauce is fermented in wine barrels. It is a collaboration between two fermentation traditions that has attracted the attention of chefs around the world.

Rooted in one small town in Wakayama, Yuasa Soy Sauce is quietly finding its way into kitchens far beyond Japan.