You know I’m right, don’t even try and fight me.
Kikkoman is a Japanese dark (Koikuchi Shoyu) Yi Pin is a Chinese light (生抽).
A Japanese dark is a dipping sauce (although can be used as all purpose). Many Japanese chefs will tell you that a Japanese light (Usukuchi Shoyu) is better for cooking. Japanese dark soy is essentially a finished product that you can add more to.
A Chinese light is an all purpose sauce and isn’t usually used as a dipping sauce straight out of the bottle unless you’re a broke university student. It contains way less wheat (or is sometimes completely gluten free, depending on how traditional the maker is) and is therefore less sweet. At the very, very minimum, you’d add some spring onion and/or a drizzle of sesame oil before you start dipping dumplings in it. It’s a building block that you can use as a finished product in a pinch.
Lee Kum Kee is better for cooking. Kikkoman as dipping or condiments
Lee Kum Kee🇭🇰 is good but overpriced. kikkoman🇯🇵 is overhyped. Haitian🇨🇳 is the working wo/man/by’s soy sauce
Getting some concerning readings of usa centrism in this local area. Wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?
Lee Kum Kee is cheaper at my local, which is why I switched. The owner stocks stuff from all over but stuff out of China tends to be a good bit cheaper than anything imported from the Americas.
when i lived in china i used to get haitian, lee kum kee was more expensive and kikkoman was imported. now i buy decent locally produced and sometimes for a treat a better quality, also local sauce. we usually have a couple different soy sauces in the house.
didn’t even know there are places they import soy sauce from the americas
haitian
I assumed this was from Haiti? Never seen the brand lol.
oh i see lol
Hai Tian 海天 is a sauce brand from guangdong
Autocorrect strikes again lol.
Interesting, the owner doesn’t stock it. I wonder if she’s from Hongkong and has strong opinions on soysauce.
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I assume there must be someone producing soy sauce at scale in Brazil just with how huge Brazil’s soy bean production is. I don’t know any brands or anything, but I don’t see a whole lot of Brazilian exports where I am and also am not enough of a soy sauce connoisseur to be looking for unusual options, so I wouldn’t be likely to come across any
Weirdly enough, the Netherlands is the second-biggest exporter of soy sauce. Behind China in first, ahead of Japan in third. That’s not the Americas, of course, unless you count it via the Antilles, but it was a surprise to me
Weirdly enough, the Netherlands is the second-biggest exporter of soy sauce.
interesting. whenever i’m in europe i notice a lot of products at asian grocery stores come from NL. tempeh makes sense i guess because a lot of indonesian people live there. vegetables make sense beause their whole country is just a big vegetable farm interspersed with cities. imported asian food makes sense because theitr container ports are some of the biggest in europe. maybe the dutch soy sauce is imported by the barrel from asian countries and rebottled there?
It seems that Kikkoman, at least, do a lot of actual manufacturing in the Netherlands. All of their soy sauce for Europe, Africa, and the western half of Asia apparently comes from their Dutch plant. I know that Dutch sailors were the ones to introduce the sauce to Europe after trading with Japan, so maybe the Dutch just developed something of a tradition with it?
That said, your theory about the ports could still be part of it. They’re definitely not growing all the actual soy beans in the Netherlands, so whether it’s manufacturing or rebottling, the ingredients are going to be coming in by boat for sure
the realization is slowly dawning on me that, at some asian restaurant in europe, i may have consumed soy sauce that was made by the hand of a d*tch
hallo hallo in de nederlands we mejken den soojensaus
I haven’t tried Haitian before. Aside from price can you say anything about it?
they have lots of types but we usually used the reduced salt light soy sauce.
honestly if you can find a decent supermarket brand light soy sauce it’s probably roughly as good. if you want a really good sauce for dipping sushi etc in, try to find some fine craft soy sauce, otherwise go for something simple
Oh cool! Thanks for the rundown. I just found some Haitian light soy sauce for like $3, stoked to try it out.
Kkkikkkkkkoman
To each their own. I prefer Tamari better, less salty and richer flavor for dipping sauce. Their are good brands and Kikkoman makes it as well. It’s fermented without wheat so the process takes a longer time. My wife likes Kikkoman regular soy sauce for edamame pods so I have it.
I use Indonesian kecap asin, sedang, manis, Thai dark, light et cetera soy sauces like golden mountain, spiced soy sauces like Surinam Paloeloe, there are so many different kinds and brands I use and like.
Do people really spell shouyu like that
This is so sad Alexa play Love Men Holic
Show me, SHOWYOU, Kikkoman Kikkoman, show me, SHOW YOU, KI-KKO-MAN, ALRIGHT!
The great hero Kikkoman! Soy sauce makes the difference Pour it, taste it, be amazed! Restaurants are no match to him
Japanese romanization needs some serious help. While shouyu is correct as a direct transcription of kana orthography, you also would need to romanize the capital 東京 as Toukyou. I could totally see my mom romanizing it as “show you” though as the possibility of a language with a uniform spelling was completely erased from her mind with English as a native language and then French in high school.
Of course Han characters are superior so 醤油 is obviously the only good spelling
I’m gonna start using nihon-siki rōmazi from now on
Made a grilled tofu teriyaki and I used store brand soy sauce and it was damn good
But if you get store brand how can you appreciate the terroir?
When the time comes, we will make no excuses for the terroir
On one of my albums I listed all the gear I used. It was a considerable list. Hidden amongst the KORG and Roland synths and outboard compressors/EQs/etc was “Kikkoman soy sauce”
Its great as an addition to sauces where you want salt and color
If Japanese I usually go for Yamasa. It has a balanced flavor, good for cooking and for no-cook sauces.
Otherwise I either experiment with something new or get Lee Kum Kee, which is $3-5 at Asian grocery stores.
I’m a Kimlan gal myself. Yamasa if I’m feeling fancy
But Kikkoman is never the wrong choice
I grew up with it, but am not too fussed. It’s more expensive here :(
Anything but La Choy. It’s made through a really artificial chemical reaction so it only takes 3 days instead of 4 months to make, and it tastes almost nothing like real soy sauce.
I know it’s not quite the same thing, but I’ve switched almost completely to coconut aminos.
