Yuasa Soy Sauce (湯浅醤油有限会社), Yuasa, Japan

This article was updated on 19 Sep 2021 to clarify the train trip to Yuasa Station and the factory.

Everyone loves ice cream, but ice cream was not the reason I made a trip to see this factory in Yuasa, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan. The ¥400 ice cream cone was an added bonus for visiting and it is a unique flavor that is a specialty for this place. The flavor of this ice cream is soy sauce and you can try it at the café attached to the Yuasa Soy Sauce factory. Soy sauce ice cream is not salty in taste (as one might think), and is a nice tasty treat after touring the factory. Please read the rest of the article to find out more about touring the factory and the real reason why I made a special repeat trip here.

Yuasa Soy Sauce (湯浅醤油有限会社) Site

This was actually my second visit to the Yuasa Soy Sauce factory on 2 Nov 2019. The factory complex, in a traditional wooden building, consists of the production floor, retail store, and café. Touring the factory is free and I took a self-guided factory tour before entering the retail shop and the café. The old wooden building has character and the atmosphere is far from that of a modern factory. The self-guided tour takes no more than 20 minutes and you get to see how soy sauce is made using traditional methods in Japanese Cedar barrels. There is multi-lingual signage (English included) to guide you on your tour. At the start of the tour you see the bottom of the Japanese Cedar barrels on the first floor and then you see the tops of the barrels on the second floor where the mash is mixed by hand. Please note that there are only stairs to take you to the second floor and there is no elevator. At the end of the tour, you descend a set of stairs to the retail shop and café.

Traditional Japanese Cedar Fermentation Barrels

The town of Yuasa is said to be the origin of soy sauce in Japan some 750 years ago. Yuasa Soy Sauce was established in 1841 and is currently being run by the fifth generation owner. The company makes their soy sauce using traditional labor-intensive methods, exclusively using ingredients sourced from Japan (even the salt and sugar), in cedar fermenting barrels without any additives or chemical preservatives, unlike other mass-produced soy sauces. Their products have different flavors and are not singular in taste (again unlike the mass-produced soy sauce). The factory is really an artisanal brewery that produces soy sauce.

Japanese Cedar fermentation barrels are stirred with oars from the top

Making soy sauce is manually intensive when made the traditional way. Soy sauce here is made using Japanese Cedar barrels, which "breath" and allow the native bacteria to give the soy sauce it's unique flavor profile. The barrels are manually stirred with oars to promote fermentation. For a fee, you can also try using an oar to stir the fermenting soy sauce in the cedar barrels. Modern soy sauce making (i.e. large volume production) uses stainless steel tanks. Soy sauce is made in many other regions in Japan, so each soy sauce will have it's own unique flavor profile given that the bacteria living at the production site varies from region to region.

Soy Sauce Components

To make soy sauce, Yuasa Soy Sauce uses a traditional production process:

• First soak the soy beans thoroughly and then are steamed in a pressure cooker [1].

• The wheat is roasted and crushed [1].

• An equal amount of boiled soybeans and roasted wheat are mixed to form a grain mixture. A culture of Aspergillus spore is added to the grain mixture and mixed. This mixture is called the koji [2].

• The koji is allowed to culture for four days in a temperature and humidity controlled environment [1].

• The cultured grain mixture is mixed into a specific amount of salt brine for wet fermentation and left to brew in the Japanese Cedar barrels. Over time, the Aspergillus mold on the soy and wheat break down the grain proteins into free amino acid and protein fragments and starches into simple sugars [2]. The cultured grain mixture is stirred according to the fermentation of the koji for 1.5 years (modern soy sauce makers limit fermentation to one to six months). The original taste, aroma, and color of soy sauce are produced by the decomposition of the koji [1].

• The fully fermented grain slurry is placed into cloth-lined containers and pressed to separate the solids from the liquid soy sauce [2].

• At this point, the Aspergillus is still active and given the right conditions, fermentation may begin again, so the liquid soy sauce is cooked slowly in kettles, using pine wood as fuel which is a traditional method, for about one-half day [1].

• The soy sauce is bottled and packaged, and is now ready for shipment.

Soy Sauce Press

So at the beginning of this article I alluded to the real reason I traveled to the Yuasa Soy Sauce factory.  That reason is to buy their smoked soy sauce, which as far as I know, is the only soy sauce produced having a smoked flavor. I bought one 200ml (less than 7 oz.) bottle on my first visit after doing a sample tasting in their retail shop (you can taste a sample of all the soy sauces they sell). I have been using the smoked soy sauce as a dipping sauce for dim sum. It is not a soy sauce to cook with since each 200ml bottle is ¥2500 (which is about US$23).

Yuasa Soy Sauce Smoked Soy Sauce [3]

The retail shop participates in the Japan Tax-Free Shop Program, which allows foreigners to make purchases tax free as long as the goods leave Japan. If you buy ¥5000 worth of products in one purchase and have a foreign passport, you are not charged the consumption tax at shops participating in this program. The price of the Smoked Soy Sauce (¥2500) does not include Japan's 10% Consumption Tax, so I bought two Smoked Soy Sauce bottles for ¥5000 tax free. For some (unknown) reason at this shop, only food products can be bought tax free (i.e. you have to pay the consumption tax on non-food items). A tax free receipt is placed in your passport, which you are supposed to surrender before you exit Japan at the airport (there is a tax counter before Immigration and after security screening) and your purchases examined to make sure they are leaving Japan (i.e. you did not resell or give-away your purchases in Japan). Nobody ever stops at the tax counter and nobody ever checks to see that you are exiting Japan with your tax free purchases. So I just remove the tax free receipt from my passport at the first opportunity and at the airport, I go straight to the Immigration counter after security.

Yuasa Soy Sauce (湯浅醤油有限会社) Information and Access

Name:

• Yuasa Soy Sauce

• 湯浅醤油有限会社

Address:

• 1464 Yuasa, Arida District, Wakayama 643-0004, Japan

• 〒643-0004 和歌山県有田郡湯浅町大字湯浅1464

Access:

• Japan Rail Pass (7-, 14-, 21-day):
• Valid for travel throughout Japan on Japan Rail (with some exceptions).
• Purchase outside of Japan. Must show passport and have a short-term (90 day) visitor's stamp to redeem at selected airports and rail stations. (This is changing)
• Once activated, must be used on consecutive days (i.e. cannot skip days).
• Website: https://japanrailpass.net/en/.

• Plan your rail trip using Hyperdia: http://www.hyperdia.com/en/.

• The Yuasa Soy Sauce factory is located in the city of Yuasa in Wakayama Prefecture, which is a little over 90 minutes south by limited express train from Osaka (Shin-Osaka Station). Yuasa is actually closer to Osaka's Kansai Airport and the city of Wakayama. A day trip from Tokyo can be done, however the one-way trip would take almost five hours by a combination of Shinkansen and limited express train, making a day trip from Osaka, Kyoto, or Wakayama a better option.

• From Osaka (Shin-Osaka Station):
• Take the Limited Express Kushiro train to Yuasa, which takes approx. 95 minutes. The trip is fully covered by the Japan Rail (JR) Pass, otherwise the cost is:

• Unreserved: ¥3400
• Reserved: ¥3730
• Green Seat: ¥6200
• Note: Not all Limited Express Kuroshio trains stop at Yuasa, in which case you will have to transfer and take (a slower) local train from Wakayama.

• Walk 11 minutes (850m/0.5 miles) from Yuasa Station to the factory.

• Prices are accurate as of the published date of this article and are subject to change.

Hours:

• 9:00-16:00 (Factory Tour, Retail Shop, and Café).

• Factory tour (suggested duration: 20 min) is free and self-guided (with English signage).

• Information is accurate as of the published date of this article and is subject to change.

Websites:

• Yuasa Soy Sauce (湯浅醤油有限会社) Japanese website (the English website has limited information; need to rely on your browser's translation feature):

• https://www.yuasasyouyu.co.jp/%e5%b7%a5%e5%a0%b4%e8%a6%8b%e5%ad%a6/.

• Marushinhonke Corporate - Yuasa Soy Sauce Product website (Japanese):

• https://yuasa-marushin.net/.

• Plan your train trip using Hyperdia:

• http://www.hyperdia.com/en/.

• Japan Rail Pass (7-, 14-, 21-day):

• https://japanrailpass.net/en/.

Map:

References

[1] Yuasa Soy Sauce. "Soy Sauce Manufacturing Process". Last accessed: 15 Dec 2019. http://www.kadocho.co.jp/process.html.

[2] Wikipedia. "Soy sauce". Last modified: 15 Dec 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soy_sauce.

[3] Marushinhonke Co., Ltd. - Yuasa Soy Sauce. "Smoked Soy Sauce 200ml". Last accessed: 17 Dec 2019. https://yuasa-marushin.net/collections/popular-item/products/smoked-soy-sauce-200ml.

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