Although Yuet Wo as a brand name may not readily ring a bell with most Hong Kong people, most Hong Kong people have had its soy sauce in one form or another. Currently based in Kwu Tung Village in Sheung Shui, Yuet Wo supplies its locally produced soy sauce and other sauces to many of Hong Kong’s restaurants.

I joined a tour at Yuet Wo in Kwu Tung Village to see how naturally sun-dried soy sauce is made. The tour is run by Hong Kong Historical Shops. It took a full two hours with the owner of Yuet Wo walking through the whole production process with us.

The meeting place was the Kwu Tung Vegetable Coop, and then we walked into the Kwu Tung Village to find Yuet Wo. It is very easy to find, and another local sauce maker Kui Lee is just next door to Yuet Wo.

Leading us through the tour today was Jack Pong, who is the third-generation owner of Yuet Wo. He and his sister are now the ones taking the helm at the sauce maker, and they have been working out the future of the company, especially given that the production facilities must move to a new venue after land resumption of Kwu Tung completes.

The History of Yuet Wo

Yuet Wo began its first chapter in Hong Kong in Tsuen Wan, where its production took place on Chung On Street. Jack’s grandfather came from Foshan in southern China. Sauce making is a specialty in Foshan. Fleeing the unrests in China, Jack’s grandfather started a business in Hong Kong to bring in a livelihood. The company started with about 8-10 of his grandfather’s brothers from the hometown.

Although the company was only properly registered in 1945, the operations began before that time. During the heyday of Hong Kong’s sauce making industry in the 1960s or so, 70-80 soy sauce making companies operated in Hong Kong. As compared with other types of light industries, soy sauce making was relatively straightforward. There was no need for big equipment.

During the Japanese Occupation years, Yuet Wo continued its production, but it stayed very low key for the sake of survival. Due to the urban developments that would eventually sweep through the whole community in Tsuen Wan, Yuet Wo moved its production to its current location in Kwu Tung in the 1980s. They have been in Kwu Tung for more than 40 years since.

The First Drop of Soy

Jack told an engaging story about the first drop of soy. Like so many great discoveries of the world, soy was also discovered by accident. In those near-prehistoric-days of no refrigerators, people preserved meats by salting them. When they removed the meat, there remained the juice of meat mixed with the salt in the containers. This was the fermented juice of meat. It tasted good and people began exploring the way of fermented sauces.

In those times, only the royalties could afford the luxury of meat. Therefore both meat and soy sauce were considered royal food.

As with meat, soybeans have high amino acids content, which is what gives the sauce its flavors and body. It is believed that a man named Ha Tai was the one that invented soy sauce. He is now revered on site at Yuet Wo as the patron saint of their soy making business.

As early as the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 B.C.), the historical scrolls have contained records of the making of soy sauce and other marinates. It truly is a thousand-centuries-old culinary practice in Chinese culture. As such, soy sauce making is a Hong Kong Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Some Basics of Naturally Sun-Dried Soy Sauce

The Soybeans

Yuet Wo prides itself on the making of its soy sauce by sun-drying the soybeans. This is the traditional method. It requires a natural fermentation process that takes three months to half a year. The alternative, which is the modern way of making soy sauce, extracts the amino acids from the soybeans and injects color additives. In the modern factories, the production churns out batches of soy sauce in the matter of a few days.

Most of the soy sauce is made from soybeans, although some soy sauce makers use black beans. At Yuet Wo, the naturally sun-dried soy sauce is made of soybeans. It also prides itself on the use of Canadian-grown soybeans only, and there is a story to that.

During the earlier times, the supply of soybeans from China was cut due to wars and political turmoil. Therefore, even in its beginnings Yuet Wo had always used Canadian-grown soybeans.

Fast forward to decades later, Canadian soybeans present a new marketing angle. Due to Canada’s strict legal prohibitions on genetically-modified organisms (GMO), the soybeans produced there are guaranteed to be free of genetic modification. Therefore, Canadian-grown soybeans bear the medal of excellence amidst the growing trend of health-consciousness for this generation of diners.

The Soy Sauce Making Process

For making soy sauce, it takes four ingredients. First is flour, which supplies the nutrients to the bacteria for fermentation. Second is the bacteria Aspergillus orizae for fermentation. Then comes saline water. One special thing about Aspergillus orizae is that it likes salted water, unlike most other bacteria. And needless to say, soybeans, and heaps of them, are necessary for making soy sauce.

The simplicity of the matter ends here. What follows is a complicated process of fermentation that requires years of experience and expertise to hone and perfect. First of all, the soybeans are cooked, then the bacteria is added. The first fermentation takes 48 hours at the fermentation room indoors. The yellow color shows that the bacteria grows. At this stage, the temperature has to be controlled at between 28 to 32 degrees.

Photo: in the fermentation room, the first step of adding bacteria takes place. Note the ceiling that shows mold. Even the bacteria in the roof is part of the environment conducive to mature the bacteria.

In the second fermentation, the workers add saline water, then place the soybeans under natural daylight for drying. This is the long process that takes three to six months (three being the minimum), or perhaps even as long as nine months. The bacteria will break down the soybeans and the flour into amino acids and glucose.

Photo: with the old style, traditional urns that contains the soy sauce in the second fermentation, the workers have to extract the soy sauce and it takes time and effort. With the modern rectangular tanks you just release the soy sauce from the faucet dispenser.

The breakdown of the soybean and the flour usually completes in three months, but at that point the color of the soy sauce remains light. It takes at least six months for the soy sauce to form its dark color naturally.

For the sauce maker, the cheapest way to produce naturally sun-dried soy sauce is to allow for a three-month second fermentation, then add color additives.

The natural coloring of soy sauce is formed by a process called Maillard Reaction. This is where plant protein, sugar plus a long time of drying causes a process similar to caramelization. This process also introduces aroma into the soy sauce.

Even though Aspergillus orizae likes salt water, some of it dies. And this is actually what adds flavor, texture and complexity to the soy sauce.

Photo: “soy salt” is the secondary product from the second fermentation of soy sauce. These crystalized salt are residues that accumulate on the rims of the urns and they can be scraped off in chunks. The primary use of the “soy salt” is to reuse them in the next batch of soy fermentation.

After the second fermentation, the soy sauce is cooked in a “thousand-people pot” for sterilization and flavoring. At each cooking 2000 kg of soy is processed with these huge pots. This is the final step before bottling.

During this whole process, the sauce maker must have a precise understanding of the temperature, timing, and the proportion of ingredients required for each step. Any variation, such as the amount of soy being kept in what size of the container and for how long, will affect the final taste of the soy sauce. This explains why there are distinguishable differences between the different brands of soy sauce. In fact, even the same soy maker using the same general recipe can turn out differences in taste if any of the variables are altered, including the size of the containers, or the varying combination of those factors.

The Distillation of Chinese White Wine

Yuet Wo is the only sauce maker in Hong Kong that does both sauce making and wine making in the same production site. It is also one of the only two makers of Chinese rice wine remaining in Hong Kong. After touring the sauce making section, we were introduced to the wine distillation.

The most important step for Chinese rice wine making is the filtering of impurities after the wine has been fermented and distilled. And it was nearly shocking for me to hear that traditionally the removal of impurities is done by placing a big chunk of fatty pork into the wine. The fat in the pork will absorb the impurities. We were told that the pork that is hiding in plain sight in the wine containers are some 20, 30 years old. And if it becomes saturated, new pieces of pork are placed for this purpose.

Therefore, the Yuk Bing Siu kind of Chinese rice wine is actually not vegan at all. The “Yuk” in this wine, although written in the character of “jade,” actually refers to the meat that is placed to remove the impurities. In Yuet Wo, the pork being placed in the wine are cooked. But some wine makers would use raw pork.

Jack told us that for vegans, carbon can be used instead of pork to filter the impurities, but the taste is better with pork-soaked rice wine.

The Future of Yuet Wo

The official end date of Yuet Wo’s occupancy of its current site is April 2024. Legally speaking, that is the time when the Hong Kong Government will resume the ownership of the land. However, the Hong Kong Government has not given Yuet Wo the final move-out date yet.

Jack and his sister are finding a new home for their sauce making facilities. The difficulty is not knowing the final move-out date. Needless to say, they would like to stay in the current location for as long as possible.

Of the four sauce makers in Kwu Tung village, two have definitively said that they shall not continue with the operations after the Hong Kong Government retakes their land. The decision of whether to continue or not actually does not depend solely on the availability of the space needed for production. For many of these traditional sauce makers, the difficulty is rather that there is no one to succeed the business. Most of these traditional, small-scale sauce makers are family businesses. If the younger generation of the owners do not wish to take on the business, then the only result is closure. The land resumption of Kwu Tung Village is but the final blow to a sunset industry.

Besides the looming land resumption, there are also ongoing trends that threaten the business of traditional sauce makers. For example, even as early as the 1980s or so, the demand for Chinese rice wine has already been declining steadily. In those days, the traditional wedding banquets would feature cases and cases of Chinese rice wine at the table. With the popularity of alternative beverages, such as soda, beer and western wines, demand for Chinese rice wine has dropped significantly, and likely will not ever come back.

At the time, Yuet Wo’s response to that trend was to make vinegar out of their rice wines, which takes further fermentation of the rice paste leftover from wine making. Decades later, Jack is now exploring ways to turn Yuet Wo’s rice wine into creative, trendy products, and he is currently making lemon, plum and other kinds of fruit wines.

Photo: this is a vinegar urn made during the Republican period (in this case, it was made 1920). There are quite a few of those Republican era urns still in Yuet Wo. The urn was always used for fermenting vinegar, as such the repeated use of the urn (with vinegar residues) was what made it valuable. The carbon above filters the air in the traditional way.

Photo: on the antique vinegar urn, the time stamp shows “Republican 20,” referring to the year made as Republican Period, 1920 .

Finally, Yuet Wo is also keenly exploring export opportunities for their products. Dining trends in Hong Kong have become increasingly diverse. Cantonese food is no longer the only favorite for Hong Kong diners. Therefore tapping the markets abroad for its traditional sauces is another crucial means of survival for Yuet Wo.

The store of Yuet Wo, where you can buy a number of creative products, including both sauces and food, is located in No. 33, Ground Floor, Market Street, Tsuen Wan, New Territories.

Sources

The Tour of Yuet Wo offered by Hong Kong Historical Shops.