Soy sauce. For generation after generation it has been unthinkable for a Japanese home to be without some on the kitchen shelf. But the way it is made has changed over the years, and now more than 99% of soy sauce is made fast, in huge metal tanks.

But, on one little island in the middle of the Seto Inland Sea, Shodo island, soy sauce is still made the traditional way in cedar barrels. Of the 4000 cedar soy sauce barrels still in use across Japan, it’s said that a quarter are here on Shodo. There are 20 makers on the island, and many of them are small, family-run businesses. Walk through the streets, and the air is filled with the rich smell of fermenting soy.

Making soy sauce in cedar barrels means working with the seasons. The cold winter months are for preparation. Soy beans and wheat are mixed to make the leavening base (called “kouji” in Japanese), and then salted water is added to make the mash (moromi). As the weather gets warmer over spring and summer, the soy sauce bacteria develops and fermentation starts, and then over the autumn and into winter the soy sauce matures. The mature moromi is then pressed, to get the final soy sauce. The secret of the soy sauce craftsman’s art lies in keeping the bacteria that lives in the barrels and the mud walls of the warehouses in as good a condition as possible, so that it can work it’s magic.

“It’s not people who make soy sauce, it’s the bacteria. All people do is help the bacteria do it’s work.” Every soy sauce maker says the same.

Of course, when they say “help the bacteria do its work”, you can’t actually see bacteria. But they will watch the barrels one by one, and the way they know that it’s time to give that barrel over there a stir, it’s as if they really can see it. In modern day Japan, each one of those traditional makers holds invaluable skills, which is why they can hold their heads high and be so proud to be “just helping the bacteria”.

When I taste their soy sauce – sauce made by craftsmen who have reached the peak of their trade – I feel like it’s not so much their skills that go into the taste, but their individual characters. A shy or modest craftsmen will make shy or modest soy sauce. A strong-headed craftsman’s soy sauce is itself “strong-headed”. It’s as though the decisions they make along the way, depending on their own character, affect the taste of their product. Each warehouse has a different smell, and in each the bacteria works in different ways. And that leads me to all kinds of new discoveries, and makes me want to learn more and more about what they do. I was born here in Hishio No Sato (the town’s name translates literally as “The Home of Soy Sauce”), and have been researching soy sauce for 7 years now, but I feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface, and always feel I want to learn more, and tell more and more people about what I find.

The children of the Soy Sauce makers
I was brought up in a soy sauce maker’s home myself, but like nearly all the other makers’ kids, none of us were really aware that our homes were soy sauce makers. It was just perfectly normal to have a big, wooden warehouse by the house, and the smell was a natural part of our lives. I grew up without even thinking about the fact that there were soy sauce warehouses all over the neighborhood.

Yasuo-san is the 5th generation at the Yamaroku Soy Sauce makers, and they have a beautiful old warehouse at the house, but just like me as a child he never even thought about it. “It’s dangerous,” they were told, so they were never allowed inside. It wasn’t until he was in elementary school that he first wondered why his dad was never in the house, and then it clicked that he was out in the warehouse making soy sauce.
So it was just common knowledge for us that children didn’t go into the warehouses. It was dangerous, and the only people who needed to go in were the people working there. The first time I went inside ours was when I was a university student.

But, now that Yasuo-san has taken over as the 5th generation in his family to run the business, he makes sure that the kids do go in. And as much as possible he shows them what he does, and how he works. In fact, if you’re talking with him in the warehouse, the kids will come running in shouting for dad like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

The kids roast soy sauce rice dumplings for visitors,

and you might even be told to “stick ‘em up” when you visit

Yasuo’s son, Kozo, lives naturally in and out of the warehouse now, along with his grandfather. Yasuo is certain he will be the 6th generation maker one day. “They say you never forget what you learn as a small child, right? I told Kozo over and over when he was little that he would carry on the family line one day. So, even if he leaves for a while, he’ll come back for sure.” Okay. Really? I wasn’t convinced, so I gave it a little test. “Kozo, what are you going to be when you grow up?” And he fired off his reply right away: “A soy sauce maker!” Attaboy! Can’t wait for the next generation of Yamaroku soy sauce.