A really surprising seasoning appeared on the market this month. It’s called Suītsu senyō shōyu スイーツ専用醤油 (Soy sauce only for sweets)!

Soy sauce (shōyu 醤油) is one of the most essential condiments for Japanese cuisine. Soy sauce is used for sushi, rāmen, udon, tempura, unagi (eel), sukiyaki and many other Japanese dishes. However, except for a few special cases, using soy sauce for dessert is not common at all.

What does it look like?

Normally, soy sauce is a smooth liquid as the name indicates. However, this special soy sauce is syrupy like honey and is easy to use as a topping on desserts.

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Two flavors: mitarashi and vanilla

The soy sauce for sweets has two flavors: mitarashi and vanilla. Both of them use 3-year fermented soy sauce, high density mirin (sweet rice wine for cooking), sanontō 三温糖 (light brown color sugar), and black sugar. These high-quality ingredients make the brand-new soy sauce delicious.

Both flavors are available here.

Mitarashi dango is actually one of the few special cases where soy sauce is traditionally used. So many Japanese people are familiar with mitarashi flavor. The mitarashi sauce is a well-balanced combination of soy sauce and sugar.

On the other hand, vanilla is totally beyond my imagination. However, according to the press release, it tastes like salty caramel. Vanilla flavor will give any Japanese dessert a western twist.

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What are some recommended uses?

They introduced some ways to enjoy their new sweet soy sauce.

As you can see, the first variation they are proposing is to apply the soy sauce on top of ice cream!

Next… it looks like normal pancakes, but the brown sauce on top is the soy sauce!

This is a Mont Blanc chestnut cream cake sold at a convenience store. Applying the soy sauce will give it a completely different taste!

Of course, this is soy sauce after all, so it goes well with traditional Japanese confectionaries, such as warabi mochi わらび餅, as well as the Western sweets above. Warabi mochi is a chewy dessert made from warabi (bracken starch) powder.

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Who made this unique soy sauce?

The Nakatsu factory from Nitanda Shoyuten 二反田醤油店 (Nitanda Soy Sauce Shop) is the inventor of this new soy sauce. They are a traditional soy sauce maker in Ōita prefecture. The company has over 100 years of history. Their soy sauce is very high quality because how particular they are about the manufacturing process.

Here is a digest video about how they make their soy sauce. Even if you live in Japan, it’s very rare to have an opportunity to see the soy sauce making process. So, check it out!

The reason why such a traditional company started to make this new soy sauce is that they wanted to expand the possibilities of soy sauce. Before they decided to release this product, they were already collaborating with local sweet shops. In their collaborations, they even made pudding with soy sauce and a soy sauce pound cake! Now these are available at their shop in Ōita prefecture and online

Suītsu senyō shōyu スイーツ専用醤油 (Soy sauce only for sweets) is a very new concept. Why don’t you try the new possibilities of soy sauce?

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Information

• Official Website
• Note: You may need to use a proxy shopping service such as Buyee or White Rabbit Express if you'd like to have it shipped internationally