# Tamari Shoyu Is Overrated In The West

If you search about shoyu in English, a lot of people recommend
tamari shoyu. Because it's less salty and has deeper taste & flavor.
But if you search about tamari shoyu in Japanese, people recommend
it only as a dipping sauce for sashimi or stir-frying meat & fish.
Because of its strong flavor.

Why is it like that?


First of all, the darkness and flavor of shoyu comes from the
fermentation of soybeans. So more salt means less fermentation and
lighter color. Also more wheat means lighter color. Like shiro miso
containing wheat has lighter color than aka miso.

Then there are types of shoyu by the colors. Tamari > Koikuchi >
Usukuchi > Shiro. Tamari is the darkest. Shiro is the lightest.
Tamari uses only soybeans. But Shiro uses a lot more wheat than
soybeans. 1:9. If you compare saltiness, Usukuchi is the most
salty. Tamari is the least.

"Shoyu" without any adjectives means koikuchi shoyu. The ratio of
soybean and wheat is 1:1 in koikuchi. So it's for general purpose.
And more importantly, it was invented in Kanto region which contains
Edo. The former name of Tokyo.


The origin of shoyu was tamari. So I could call tamari the most
Chinese type. Because shoyu came from China. But soon people in
Kyoto realised that tamari is too strong and dark. It kills the
original flavors and colors of the ingredients. Thus they adopted
usukuchi shoyu from Hyogo.

Usukuchi shoyu is the most salty. Because of that, you need only a
little of it. This with the already light color makes foods a lot
lighter. Usukuchi shoyu accentuate the original flavors and colors.
Instead of killing them.

However, with the start of Edo period, the capital of Japan went
from Kyoto to Edo. And Edo people ate much more blue fishes and
birds than Kyoto people. But usukuchi shoyu is not strong enough
to cover the original scents. And tamari is still too strong.

Note that Kyoto was the city of emperor, scholars, and buddhists
who don't eat meat. But Edo was more like a city of samurais and
merchants who prefered stronger taste. Also Kyoto is surrounded by
mountains. So people couldn't get fresh seafoods anyway even if
they wanted. Seafoods were usually fermented or salted.

Thus Kanto people invented koikuchi shoyu. With that, Kanto people
had started to use katsuobushi for the main ingredient of dashi.
And soba went widespread with mentsuyu. In Kyoto, people still
prefer konbu > katsuobushi, and udon > soba. Also Kyoto style dashi
doesn't include ingredients other than konbu & katuobushi. Such as
shiitake and daikon. The purpose is to make lighter dashi.


Long story short, what I really want to say is that stop overusing
tamari like a savage. Try usukuchi shoyu. It's a lot more refined
and noble taste. Shiro miso and konbu dashi are good too.