Fermentation and Umami

I was looking for soy sauce.

A soy sauce to pair with cacao.

But when I started searching, I found that soy sauce made without additives was far rarer than I had expected.

At Cacaogoto, we make chocolate and confections without additives or artificial colorings. So I wanted to use a soy sauce made with the same kind of care.

That’s when I came across Kanayoshi Shoyu, a local soy sauce producer.

A brewery with over a hundred years of history. In 2022, they revived the traditional method of brewing in wooden barrels.

Fermenting slowly with the help of microorganisms. Aging for more than a year.

As I listened to their story, I kept thinking — this reminds me of cacao.

Inheriting Time

Tracing the history of soy sauce, I learned that it changed dramatically after World War II.

There was a time when the traditional methods were nearly lost.

And yet, there were people who chose to preserve them — and that is why they exist today.

Thinking about that, the soy sauce I had always taken for granted began to look a little different.

Cacao, too, requires a great deal of time and effort — for fermentation, for drying.

No additives.

No rushing.

Choosing depth of flavor over efficiency.

Talking with the people at Kanayoshi Shoyu, I felt a resonance in how we each approach the act of making.

Perhaps it is not only the method that is similar.

Fermentation, I thought, is something like the memory of time.

The Word “Umami”

In recent years, I have been hearing the word “umami” more often outside of Japan.

In the world of cacao as well, “umami” has begun to appear as a category in flavor profiles.

And yet, I sense that the umami felt by those who grew up in Japan is somehow different from the umami experienced elsewhere.

Miso.

Soy sauce.

Dashi.

Japan has a culture of living alongside flavors born from time.

The memory of fermentation and aging has accumulated within the senses since childhood.

Perhaps umami is not only a taste — but time itself.

Even so, I find it quietly fascinating that the word “umami” is becoming a common language of the world.

Three Kinds of Kingyoku

Using the additive-free soy sauce from Kanayoshi Shoyu, we created three kinds of kingyoku — a traditional Japanese confection — around the theme of fermentation and umami.

“Kanayoshi (light soy sauce)” is paired with vanilla beans from Ecuador.

“Okumurasaki (re-brewed soy sauce)” is paired with kōshin shiitake mushrooms from Ōita Prefecture.

“Nihibiki (eight-way dashi soy sauce)” is paired with cacao nibs from Peru.

All three incorporate cacao tea.

Vanilla, shiitake, cacao nibs. Each brings a distinct aroma and a different lingering finish.

In the Fermentation Cellar

May.

We welcomed guests from abroad to hold a workshop at the Kanayoshi Shoyu brewery.

After a tour of the facility, we held a Cacaogoto ceremony alongside cacao confections made with that very soy sauce.

To receive confections born of fermentation, in the very place where fermentation happens.

Place and flavor seemed to quietly answer each other.

At the online tea gathering at the end of May, these confections will be savored in each person’s own place.

So that even from a distance, we may gather around the same moment.

Tasting, in a single bite, the layers of time that fermentation holds.