Igeta Koikuchi Shoyu (井上本店 イゲタしょうゆ 濃口)

The story behind it

Trace shoyu (soy sauce) back far enough and you arrive at hishio, an ancient fermented seasoning. The culture around hishio flowered in Nara, then the capital.

Inoue Honten was founded in 1864 near Sarusawa Pond by Kofuku-ji temple. Today it brews in Kyobate, south of the old Naramachi quarter, alongside brick warehouses put up in the Meiji era. It handles every step in house, from raw material processing to bottling, which few breweries still do.

Whole domestic soybeans, domestic wheat, and sun-dried salt go into roughly 2 years of tennen jozo (naturally brewed, no temperature control) in the brewery. Against a mass-market product finished in a few months, the difference shows first in the aroma. This is an ancient capital's sense of time, in a bottle.