JAPAN: SOY SAUCE MAKER IN WESTERN JAPAN BREWS SOY SAUCE TO THE SOUND OF CLASSICAL HYMNS

Record ID: 860316

  • Title: JAPAN: SOY SAUCE MAKER IN WESTERN JAPAN BREWS SOY SAUCE TO THE SOUND OF CLASSICAL HYMNS
  • Date: 18th February 2003
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) KUNIO NAGAHARA, PRESIDENT OF KIMISE SHOYU SAYING "I used to see cicadas perching on big earthenware pots of sake at liquor stores. I came up with an idea of using music to grow soy sauce because I had thought oscillation brew it."
  • Embargoed: 5th March 2003 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: OKAYAMA JAPAN
  • City:
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Business,Industry,Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA3XTBNHQ02UTFVGHAXTEZ6XTF8
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: A soy sauce maker in western Japan has found that classical hymns are not only music to the ear but also help make a better brew.
    The Kimise Soy sauce brewery in Okayama, Western Japan, plays a different tune to other soy sauce breweries in this region famous for soybeans..
    Not only has the shop abandoned automation and moved to genetically unmodified soy beans, but it now uses music, mostly classical music, to spice up its sauce.
    And while other soy sauce makers suffered from Japan's prolonged recession this brewery is singing all the way to the bank, having seen profits double since introducing a classical note to their process.
    Manufacturers say the idea behind the process is simple.
    It consists of playing classical music to help the fermentation process of soya sauce.
    Whether its Mozart or Beethoven, it doesn't really matter. But heavy metal are hard rock is not recommended.
    According to the manufacturer, the vibrations created by certain kinds of music are reverberated through specially designed earthen pots. And so far, they seem to have worked wonders on the soy sauce by making it richer.
    Kunio Nagahara, president of Kimise Shoyu said he got the idea by watching cicadas sing in the summer.
    "I used to see cicadas perched on big earthenware pots of sake at liquor stores. I came up with the idea of using music to grow soy sauce because I had thought the oscillation which cicadas made would create good vibrations to brew it," he said.
    Cicadas are noisy insects common during the long damp Japanese summers. Nagahara had realized that their music had helped make japanese rice wine more full bodied.
    Soy sauce, made of soy beans, shares the same fermentation process and is one of the main, perhaps even the most important, condiment of Japanese cooking.
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