Katakami Usukuchi Shoyu 300ml

Katakami Usukuchi Shoyu

The Katakami usukuchi is a lighter style of shoyu made from whole soybeans and a higher proportion of wheat than regular soy.

This aromatic shoyu has a bright clean and refreshing flavour with medium intensity. It is well suited to a dipping soy and matched well with grilled wagyu or sashimi. Also ideal to use in a wafu dressing.

For Katakami Usukuchi, whole soybeans from Nara Prefecture are naturally brewed and aged for more than 1 year in Yoshino cedar wood barrels, that have been carefully tended to for 100 years.

Katakami san's pursuit was to create a light shoyu with great umami. Most other usukuchi shoyu is weak in umami. He has definately succeeded.

A great balance of aroma, umami and flavour.

About Katakami Shoyu

Katakami are an artisan shoyu producer founded in Gose, Nara prefecture in 1931 at a time when more and more soy sauce companies were changing to commercial methods of brewing in large stainless tanks using chemical processes. The Katakami family went against the grain and installed enormous hand coopered tanks to slowly ferment their shoyu the traditional way.

Whole soybeans and wheat are firstly steamed and inoculated with koji spores and left in the koji mura for a period of 3 days. The beans are then transferred into large wooden vats along with pristine mountain water and magnesium rich sea salt.

Over time the shoyu develops rich and complex flavours and an almost sweet aroma. We asked Katakami san why use wooden barrels? He said that the natural yeasts and microbes that have developed in the wood over the decades give the shoyu a flavour that can’t be replicated in a factory. In fact every traditional shoyu brewery will have its own unique taste due the different natural yeasts.