Nihon Chomiryo Tabi
Suehiro Tatsuno Usukuchi Shoyu (末廣醤油 龍野 本造りうすくちしょうゆ)
Stories about this bottle
The story behind it
Usukuchi shoyu (lighter in color, higher in salt) was created in Tatsuno, in the Harima region, in the early Edo period. It was designed to let the color of the ingredients show through. Everything the style needed was already here: soft, low-iron water from the Ibo River, rice and wheat from the Banshu plain, and salt from Ako. Tatsuno usukuchi has underpinned Kyoto cuisine and the kaiseki table ever since.
Suehiro Shoyu, founded in 1879, is a small brewery holding to tennen jozo (naturally brewed, no temperature control) in that birthplace. Rather than forcing fermentation with heat the way volume production does, it lets the seasons set the pace and ages the batch slowly. Whole domestic soybeans and 100% domestic wheat.
Usukuchi does not mean weak. The color is pale and the savory depth is considerable. Make one simmered dish where the color of the dashi shows straight through, and you will understand the point.
How to use it
For clear soups, taki-awase simmered vegetables, and dashimaki tamago: any Japanese dish where you want the ingredients' own color to show. If you are used to koikuchi from the Kanto region, the difference in a finished simmered dish is the thing that will surprise you.