During my recent trip back to Penang, I made a visit to my favorite soy sauce factory in Georgetown. Though soy sauce is largely produced and packed commercially now, in Penang, you can still find a few remaining soy sauce factories making their soy sauce the natural way, that is, by hand.
The traditional method–sadly a dying and fast disappearing trade–ferments soybeans contained in large urns under the sun and covered up with lids at night. The soybeans are left inside the urns to “break down” and brew to become soy sauce. An everyday commodity that we so take for granted, naturally made soy sauce takes months of hard work and dedication to produce, and the result is always pleasing with an unmistaken depth and soybean fragrance in the end product…
I managed to capture a few pictures above to give you a rough idea how authentic soy sauce is made. My friend Chubby Hubby does a better job in explaining the processes in his post here.
I wanted to stress that while Kikkoman has made an empire out of soy sauce and fill the supermarkets in the US with its products, soy sauce was invented by the Chinese some 2,500 years ago. The techniques spread to Japan and other parts of Asia much later.
In the US, my favorite brand of soy sauce is Kimlan (金兰) from Taiwan. What brand of soy sauce do you have in your pantry?
Updated:
Thanks for sharing your favorite brand(s) of soy sauce with me. It is such a great exercise as it helps me to discover new brands. Just bought a bottle of Pearl River Bridge premium soy sauce (头抽) and compared it side-by-side with Kimlan. Love the depth and flavor; it’s such a great soy sauce. I am going to try out Aloha Shoyu next. :)
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{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
I usually have Pearl River Bridge but Kim Lan is also very good.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Amy - is Pearl River Bridge soy sauce made in China? I stopped buying Chinese soy sauce since I heard horrid stories about “fake” soy sauce made in China. My Chinese friends told me that some unethical soy sauce manufacturers made them with human hair. Human hair. I almost fainted when I heard it. ;)
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Amy replied:
omg, that’s horrendous. I agree, food stuffs from China can be pretty sketchy. Pearl River Bridge is made in China but they’re a big label and a reputable company.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
I know many people use that brand, it just caught me that I recognize the brand by its Chinese name, but not the English name “Pearl River Bridge.” I am sure it’s a reliable and reputable brand, the fakes are sold at a much cheaper price, and from what I heard, had a lot of “suspicious and dark” residue at the bottom of the bottom.
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*gasp* human hair? Wow, I wonder if they sell that soy sauce over the internet?
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Hopefully not, but yes, there are a lot of horrid tales about fake “foods” in China, including eggs!
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In the Caribbean we don’t usually get a variety of brands to choose from. I have Kikkoman but I usually watch out for brands on your blog and those of my other favourite blogs whose cuisines are more familiar with the brands and quality.
This was such an awesome post. Thanks for the education.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Cynthia - great that you are learning something.
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I’ve never seen how soy sauce is made… I use “pearl river bridge” soy sauce, from Guandong. And Kikkoman, but only for sushis!
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Dominique - you know your soy sauce well! :)
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I actually use Kikkoman, except it’s the import version from Japan. No preservatives, just water, soybeans, wheat and salt. It’s 10 times more delicious than the normal Kikkoman for american market which has full of preservative.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Agreed, I must have the American version which always has a weird chemical taste. ;)
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I usually use Pearl River Bridge brand, it is good. Kim Lan is very good too, I think, it is just a matter of personal preferences. Pearl River Bridge is a well known brand and has a lot of other products under its belt
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
I love important and premium, low sodium Kim Lan. Great for dipping.
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I love the specific type from Kikkoman, I think it’s call Kikkoman Premium Soy Sauce or Tokusen Marudaizu Shoyu, it’s made from whole soybeans, offering a refined soy flavour.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
I tried that before…somehow I always detect a “chemical” or “metal” taste in Kikkoman. LOL.
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I use Wei Chuan dark and light soy sauce. It says CHINA in all caps on the label and 100% naturally brewed. I buy mine at an oriental store by the name of Vinh Phat which carries so many brands I just picked one that looked like it moved. Tastes very good on everything one normally serves it on or with.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
I think Wei Chuan is Taiwanese, in any case, it’s a reliable brand.
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another pearl river bridge user here. i heard about the human hair thing too–ugh. i hope no human hair is in my soy sauce.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Hi Anna - I think you are fine. After the milk powder incident in China, I noticed that my local Asian stores took some Chinese food products off the shelves. If you can still get pearl river bridge in your store, it should be fine.
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I used Tai Hwa brand leh…*rushing to pantry to check*…..product of Singapore….
in US, I used Kimlan too :)
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Haha, that’s true…we just recognize the packaging and not the brand. Yes, in the US, Kimlan is the way to go because it tastes the closest to our soy sauce. I personally don’t like the Chinese version because they are darker and thicker, even though they are light soy sauce.
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I use Kikkoman. Not too many choices as I found the soya sauce from China contains high sodium. So, I usually buy the one with less sodium. There’s one brand that my family uses and it’s made in Alor Star. I guess next time I will take a few back with me!!
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Can you find Kimlan in London? You should try that, I find it the closest to the soy sauce in Malaysia. For Kikkoman, I don’t know, there is this almost “chemical/metal” taste that I don’t like.
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Thank you for the very informative story on Soy Sauce. Is any colouring added to make the sauce black? I find it difficult to understand how an essentially white bean can, even after fermentation, turn such a dark colour without some added colouring!
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
I don’t really know for sure, but as you can see from my pictures, the beans turned dark drown in color in the urns, and I think that’s why it’s dark color.
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Bee, you just jogged one of my childhood memories in Penang. My mom used to send me to the soy sauce factory with an empty bottle, to buy a new bottle. Could see all those gigantic urns. Completely forgot about them…until now : )
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Hey look who’s here. KL_Changs. How are you in AU? Great that this post brings back nostalgic memories to you.
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Been listening to too many rumours…avoiding the Chinese/ HK brands, started buying Yeo’s.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Yeah, Chinese products can be sketchy. I remember Yeo’s soy sauce, I think it’s too salty? Maybe I am wrong.
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Bee, I have several different types of soysauce in my pantry. If I’m cooking Japanese/Korean foods, I use Kikkoman (if you look at the list of ingredients in their soy sauce, it doesn’t have sugar) but for Chinese/other Asian foods, my go to is any Asian style soy sauce that normally has some sugar. I think it is more suitable for that style of cooking. When I was living in Hawaii, I liked their locally made brand–Aloha shoyu and I must sheepishly admit to still choosing that brand over the other Chinese brands (though I have used Kimlan and also some other brands that I can’t recall off hand now) just because I like how it tastes and I hate to have to buy another brand only to find it doesn’t work.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
I really have to find this Aloha shoyu. Can I get it in 99 Ranch?
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i went to a soy sauce factory not too long ago in Ipoh.
the smell was somewhat ….. funny, but the sight of endless rows of urns/pots used for the process was somewhat beautifully aligned.
hygiene was slightly compromised though.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Surprisingly, I didn’t smell anything at all at this place.
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living in Msia really make me take soy sauce for granted as we have so many local made choices here :p
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Exactly, so lucky!
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Didn’t know people still make soy sauce the traditional way. Always took soy sauce for granted till I moved out to hostel and learned how to cook and realised that it does wonder to my experiments in the kitchen :p I guess I kinda suck really bad then. Lol.
Anyways, great post!! Will definitely look out if I go to Penang. So nice to go around and eat there. If only I have stomach like the cow’s.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Yes, you really need a big appetite while in Penang. I eat 8 meals a day whenever I am home. Good news is that the portion is always small, and the trick is to ask for less noodles when you order the food. :)
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I use the Yummy brand that’s endorsed by the famous happy chubby chef in HK. Another brand I use is LKK’s double premium soy. Both are very fragrant and really good to cook with.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
I actually have never tried LKK when it comes to soy sauce. Very interesting. What is the Chinese name of “Yummy” brand?
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I use Aloha Shoyu (soy sauce) because Kikoman is too salty for my tastes.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
I really have to check out this Aloha Shoyu. :)
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ALOHA SHOYU!!! Sorry, I know I yelled that but I really love the stuff. We buy it by the gallon. I literally danced in the aisle when I found some in Washington. I was afraid I’d have to settle for something else.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
I will have to try that out!
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Kikkoman seems to be very popular, to me it also tastes chemical, but then so does Kimlan. Maybe it is just not to my taste. For Japanese I really like Yamasa, and Pearl River Bridge for Chinese. I always keep the indoneasan Kecap manis around as well. Thats good stuff.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
For Kim Lan, I use the low sodium version and it tastes great and no chemical taste.
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In Brasil we have a lot of brands: Kokkoman, Shoyo Hinomoto, Kitano, Sakura and so on…all brands seems good. And after long time I’m happy…because now, in Brasil, soy sauce is been used for almost people, until my sister-in-law have a bottle of soy sauce at home :)) and they are cooking chao men, learning and eatind little dumplings…it’s being great.
I think this is one of the better asiatic food I have seen so far…I will send the link to my chinese parents, you have greats text/comments here :))
See you…Paula:))
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Hi Paula - thanks for the sweet comment. Do come back and leave me your comments. :)
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I use kikkoman light soy sauce, imported from Japan and not whatever they sell in the grocery stores here.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Imported Kikkoman is definitely way better. The regular ones made in the US is as many have said–too salty and taste mass production. ;)
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Great post! I saw a doco on a rare traditional soy sauce maker in HK recently. They said the secret to his great tasting soy was the fact that they’d never washed the pots in the last 100 years so the flavour only builds.. :|
My parents like to use Pearl River Bridge brand soy sauce, so I do too. There are heaps of fake products in China, but this one has good brand equity. The “hair” story might not be related to fake soy - I think it was related to fake hair moss (a black moss that looks like human hair) that was made with flour instead of moss. Also heard about fake soya bean milk (water, colour and flavour), fake fried dace (mock meat), fake bean vermicelli (flour).. Definitely have to look carefully with some dodgy un-reputable Chinese products.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Thanks for your warnings about fake foods. Yikes!
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