How to choose a mentsuyu with no additives: 3 things to read on the label

When the season for boiling somen and soba comes around, you end up buying another bottle of mentsuyu. Then you stand in front of the shelf and there are half a dozen similar bottles, with prices differing by nearly double. What that gap is made of is hard to work out.

The clue is on the back of the package, not the front. Read the ingredient list and you can see a good deal of how that tsuyu was made. It comes down to three things.

1. Whether "seasoning (amino acids, etc.)" appears

The first thing to look for in the run of ingredients is the entry "seasoning (amino acids, etc.)" (調味料（アミノ酸等）). This is the umbrella term covering umami seasonings such as monosodium glutamate, and it is what people mean by chemical seasoning.

Its presence is not a bad thing in itself. A small amount gives a steady savor, so it is widely used in tsuyu made to a price. But where the entry appears, much of that savor is likely coming from the seasoning rather than from the dashi itself. If you want to choose a bottle with no additives, the presence or absence of this one phrase is the first fork in the road.

The rule is that ingredients are written in order of the quantity used. If sugars and seasonings sit ahead of the dashi ingredients, you can also read where the backbone of that tsuyu's taste lies.

2. Whether the dashi ingredients are named specifically

Next, look at what the dashi is made of. Are ingredients named specifically, as katsuobushi (dried bonito), kombu or shiitake, or are they bundled together as something like "flavor ingredients" (風味原料)?

Go a step further and there are grades within katsuobushi too. Honkarebushi, repeatedly cultured with mold, and hanakatsuo (花かつお) shaved from arabushi carry their aroma differently. Often you cannot tell from the label alone, but a product that states it uses ichiban dashi, the first extraction, is selling on that point, and so is likely putting work into the ingredients.

3. What the sweetness is made from

The three pillars that decide the taste of a mentsuyu are shoyu (soy sauce), dashi and sweetness. Where that sweetness comes from is the last thing to look at.

Where mirin or sugar provides it, the finish pulls together roundly. Where sugars such as high-fructose glucose syrup (果糖ぶどう糖液糖) sit high on the list, the sweetness tends to come forward. It is less that one is correct than that the more of a mentsuyu you drink down as a dipping sauce, the longer this difference stays on the tongue.

"Shinise no Aji Tsuyu": brewed with groundwater from Hayachine

One bottle that meets all of these conditions is in Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture. In Towa (東和町), Hanamaki, the home town of Kenji Miyazawa (宮沢賢治), Sasacho Jozo has been brewing since 1906 (Meiji 39), and this is its "Shinise no Aji Tsuyu" (老舗の味 つゆ).

A tsuyu with no additives that brings together groundwater from the Mount Hayachine range (早池峰山), shoyu the company brews itself by tennen jozo (naturally brewed, no temperature control), and ichiban dashi from katsuobushi. No chemical seasoning is used. It looks plain enough, but online it has gathered several hundred reviews as one of Tohoku's quietly strong bottles, described as making everything you pour it on taste better.

A noodle sauce raised in the land of wanko soba does not stop at soba. Simmered dishes, chawanmushi: this is a bottle that will take on the whole of the kitchen work.

How to use it and how to keep it

• As a dipping sauce for soba and udon. Start at full strength to learn the baseline taste
• For tempura sauce, simmered dishes and chawanmushi. It saves you drawing a separate dashi
• Dilute it as a base for hot pots and the strength of the dashi shows
• A tsuyu with no additives is not leaning on preservatives, so refrigerate after opening and use it up quickly
• The concentrated type lets you change the dilution, so it covers more uses

Two bottles can both be called mentsuyu, but read the three points on the ingredient list and you have a basis for choosing. Pick your next bottle from the back label.

Frequently asked questions

When a mentsuyu says "no additives," what is it that is not in there?

Generally it means no umami seasonings such as monosodium glutamate (listed as "seasoning (amino acids, etc.)"), no preservatives and no colorings. But "no additives" is not defined uniformly in law, so what has been left out differs from product to product. Reading the ingredient list to the end is the reliable way to check.

Where on the ingredient list can I see the difference?

There are 3 places to look. First, whether the entry "seasoning (amino acids, etc.)" appears. Second, whether the dashi ingredients are named specifically, such as katsuobushi or kombu. Third, whether the sweetness comes from mirin or sugar, or from some other syrup. Ingredients are listed in order of quantity used, so what sits near the top is a clue as well.

Should I choose the straight type or the concentrated one?

Choose by how you will use it. If it is only for dipping soba or udon, straight is the easy option. If you also want it for simmered dishes, tempura sauce or as a base for hot pots, the concentrated type lets you set the strength yourself and stretches further. Concentrate also takes up less storage space.