Kinbue Whole Soybean Shoyu (金笛 丸大豆しょうゆ)

The story behind it

In Kawajima, a town of rice paddies near Kawagoe, a shoyu (soy sauce) brewery has run for 12 generations since 1789. Its name is Fueki Shoyu, and its house brand is Kinbue.

The ingredients are soybeans, wheat, and sun-dried salt, nothing else. Rather than defatted soybean meal it uses the whole bean, and the batch spends over a year in large kioke (wooden barrels) under tennen jozo (naturally brewed, no temperature control). The oil in the whole soybean gives it a round, full-bodied flavor.

The head office has a visitor site, Kinbue Shoyu Park, where you can walk through the brewery and see the kioke. For a brewery that built a place to see, learn about, and taste shoyu, this bottle is the front door to Saitama's food culture.