Shanliu Soy Sauce, the Hometown of Azukijima Sauce.

The manufacturing process of soy sauce is not easy. When modern soy sauce technology was introduced, some soy sauce factories in Azukijima also switched to stainless steel barrels and used computer control technology to make soy sauce. The following is the introduction of Shanliu soy sauce, which chooses the traditional but more difficult manufacturing method.

The factory is located in several Japanese-style houses at the corner of the alley, which is also the house of the boss Yamamoto's family, so it smells like a "family factory". At the gate, there are two large cedar barrels taller than ordinary adults as a facade, as if to tell visitors that this place is different from ordinary modern soy sauce factories-soy sauce is made from cedar barrels.

The service staff led me to the "Soy Sauce Store" (the place where soy sauce is made), in which there are wooden barrels with a diameter of two meters and a height of two meters, and there are sixty bottles of soy sauce in Shanliu. Because after 15 years of manufacturing process, barrels and wooden houses seem to be covered with layers of fermented bacteria.

It takes at least one to two years for natural soy sauce to be finished. Generally, raw materials such as soybeans, wheat and salt are put into a bucket made of Chinese fir from December to March, and the raw materials will start to ferment when the weather is getting hotter at the end of May.

It is said that in the hot summer, you can hear the sound of fermentation. The most famous "crane sauce" of Shanliu soy sauce, after two years of fermentation, is fermented again by the same process, so it will take nearly four years to complete.

Yamamoto Yasuo, the current boss of Shanliu Soy Sauce, which has a history of one and a half centuries, is the fifth generation operator. He grew up in Azukijima. He left his hometown after college, worked in trading houses in Osaka and Tokyo for a period of time, and then came back to inherit the family business. He learned that soy sauce made of wooden barrels has become a minority in Japan, and this naturally fermented soy sauce takes a long time, which is even more valuable in the rapid era.

Fortunately, there are Japanese employees who insist on it, so that we can understand the natural fermentation process of soy sauce and taste the real sweet flavor. In Xiaodou Island, soy sauce is a historical and present continuous form, which is a modern continuation of the dietary tradition and can awaken people's taste. Only by maintaining the dietary tradition can we know the true taste of food and avoid the harm of toxic substances to the body.

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