Hata Soy Sauce Brewery

For a century, the Hata Soy Sauce Brewery has made soy sauce the old-fashioned way, using locally grown soy beans and wheat, as well as domestically produced sea salt, and doing every step by hand.

In addition to their emphasis on choice ingredients, they go a step beyond for their flagship product in particular: the fermentation process starts in a special small room made with brick walls, creating the perfect environment for preparing the koji mold fermentation that gives their soy sauce its signature complexity. Their soy sauce is further enhanced with a three-year aging period in large wooden tubs, before it’s finally ready to bottle and ship. The finished result is beloved by gourmands and high-end restaurants — it has a rich yet balanced complexity, without being too salty, making it shine alongside dishes like local seafood and kamaboko fish cake, as well as in all sorts of other cooking.

Visitors to their factory can sample their soy sauce in the shop, and even enjoy a tour around the factory where they prepare the soy sauce itself.