Taiwan Today

The only thing that brings most outsiders to the farming village of Hsinkang in the west-central county of Chiayi is the centu­ries-old Fengtien temple, one of Taiwan's most famous sites dedicated to Matsu, goddess of the sea. After paying tribute to the deity and perhaps buying some hsinkang yi, a sticky candy made of flavored sugar that has become the local specialty, most visitors hit the road. There seems little reason to linger.

But those willing to explore a bit dis­cover that Hsinkang has another historical attraction. Down a small alley, about one hundred meters from the temple, lies a 75­ year-old family-operated soy sauce busi­ness, one of the last places in Taiwan to find handmade soy sauce. The factory is housed in an H-shaped Chinese home that dates back to the 1890s. It has retained its traditional look—with a few alterations.

The central room, an axis connecting the wings, contains the customary shrine for gods and ancestors. But the living room and bedrooms in the right wing also double as bottling rooms, and the left wing contains rooms for boiling, filtering, fermenting, and storing soy sauce. The enclosed back yard holds one hundred and twenty ceramic jars standing about one meter tall. The front courtyard is open, so passers-by often have a clear view of a thin, elderly gentleman and his wife washing black beans or loading bot­tles of freshly made sauce into a small de­ livery truck or into bicycle side bags.

"Good soy sauce is like good wine," says Lin Chuan-yuan (林川源), 65, owner of the Yuanfa Soy Sauce Garden. "It gets better with age." Soy sauce has been one of the main flavorings in Chinese cuisine ever since it was invented by Chinese monks in the first millennium B.C. The pungent, salty­ sweet condiment soon spread in popularity throughout Asia and has been used in kitch­ens from Japan to Thailand for two thou­sand years. But the production method has changed drastically in the past few decades. With the development of mod­ern technology, most soy sauce is mass­ produced using chemicals and machines. Lin is one of the few remaining manufacturers using the traditional method.

Lin spent most of his life working with his father, Lin Chi-tung (林啟東), who remained active in the business until he passed away in 1990 at the age of ninety-one. "He worked up to his last sev­eral days," the younger Lin recalls. "And on his death bed, he asked me to take good care of the family business."

As a matter of fact, the Lin family didn't start with soy sauce. When they set up shop in Hsinkang in 1883, they made rice wine. "Our family made good rice wine," Lin says. "Although I didn't have a chance to taste it, many people told me it was a pity that we had to stop." But during the Japanese occupation (1895-1945) the private manufacture of alcohol was not al­lowed. Lin's father adjusted by switching to soy sauce. "The reason was simple," Lin explains. "The tools used to make soy sauce are almost the same as those used to make rice wine." The family invited a soy sauce manufacturer from the nearby town of Hsilo to teach them the trade. Accord­ing to Lin, his family learned a method originally used in the southern part of mainland China, giving the sauce an au­thentic mainland-style flavor.

Today, for cost and supply reasons, most soy sauce manufacturers make their product from soybeans and wheat. But not Lin. He maintains that while the soy-and-wheat sauce is sweeter, it is not as fragrant and mellow as that made from black beans. Very few Taiwan farmers currently grow black beans because of the low profits, small market, and strong competition from Thailand and mainland China. Yuanfa uses imported beans which cost about NT$15 (US$0.60) per kilo­gram, or half the price of the local prod­uct. "The quality is similar," Lin says. "The price is the main consideration."

Making a batch of soy sauce by hand is a six-month process. Lin first washes the beans, then steams them over a brick stove originally used in the winemaking process. The only change in the past century is that the Lins now heat the stove using the local equivalent of Presto logs, manmade sticks of com­pressed wood chips, which burn longer and hotter than natural logs. After the beans cool, they are mixed with the mold aspergillus and allowed to ferment in a closetlike room lined with shelves. After three to five days, the beans are covered with powdery fungus and are ready for processing. The aspergillus is rinsed off in a motorized washer-the only step in which the Lins use an electric tool. The machine is an adapted feed mixer pur­chased years ago from an eel farmer.

After the beans have dried for about four hours, they are salted and poured into one of the large ceramic jars. The jar are covered in plastic and loosely sealed, then set in the back yard to let the beans brew for at least six months. "The process of making soy sauce is actually not very complicated," Lin says. 'The most impor­tant factor that decides the quality of the product is time—the longer the better," he explains. Without proper aging, hand­made sauce spoils easily.

After half a year, the jars are opened and the beans are squeezed through strips of cheesecloth to produce "raw sauce." Lin uses a one-of-a-kind squeezing device that his father constructed out of blocks of wood and a tire jack. The final step is to add sugar and anise to the raw sauce, boil it, then filter it through cloth several times to remove any bean fibers. Finally, the sauce is ready for bottling.

While most modern soy sauce manu­facturers use plastic containers, Lin still uses—and reuses—glass bottles. "We don't use glass out of an environmental concern," he says. "We began using glass bottles simply because they were the most common containers at the time." In recent years, friends have urged Lin to use cheaper plastic containers, but he has stuck to glass because he feels it is wasteful to throw away a container after only one use.

Since its establishment, Yuanfa has provided free door-to-door delivery for customers—much like the American milkmen of decades past. The sauce was originally delivered on foot, then by bicy­cle, cart, motorcycle, and finally, about ten years ago, a small truck. "With door-to-door delivery, I can hear my customer's comments directly," Lin says. "And I have established friendships with them." He proudly claims his customers don't have to call to order because he keeps track of which families are running out. As a matter of fact, most of his clients are so used to Lin's sauce that they don't like the taste of modern, mass-produced varie­ties. Lin boasts that one mother recently tried a commercial soy sauce after watch­ing a TV ad but said her kids stopped eat­ing dinner after one bite.

Lin is also proud never to have used additives or preservatives in his sauce. Not only are such chemicals generally considered bad for one's health, but Lin also in­sists that sauces made with them don't taste as good. "Those sauces may keep longer and may taste better to some people," he says, "but for people who really know soy sauce, they lack real soy sauce flavor." Although he cannot explain exactly what constitutes "real" flavor, he knows that taste is the quality that has kept Yuanfa customers coming back for decades.

Yuanfa Soy Sauce Garden now sup­plies more than one thousand families in Hsinkang, many of which have been using the sauce for two or three generations. In fact, all the production is sold from Lin's home; he doesn't sell to retailers. Friends have encouraged him to market the sauce in bigger cities for bigger prof­its, but Lin is not interested. "Money isn't that important to me," he says. "Besides, I'm too old for promotional activities."

The sauce sells for between NT$15 (US$0.60) and NT$100 (US$4) per half­ liter bottle, depending upon its concentra­tion. According to Lin, 90 percent of his monthly production of 3,600 bottles sell for NT$20 a piece, making it cheaper than mass-produced soy sauce, which aver­ages NT$50 per bottle. In fact, Lin says his more expensive bottles are mostly sold to visitors from out of town. "NT$50 or NT$100 may be nothing for many peo­ple in big cities," Lin says. "But it is still a little too expensive for a bottle of soy sauce in a small town like Hsinkang."

Since his father passed away, Lin and his wife have handled all the manufactur­ing and delivery themselves. They start work at 8:00 AM and continue through the late afternoon. There is no set daily sched­ule, but the couple is always busy. "It is a hard business without much profit," Lin says. "You have to have a good reason to stick to it." But he adds that it was natural for him to inherit the business, being the only son in his family. "My father had been making soy sauce for ten years when I was born," Lin says. "I grew up surrounded by it. It seemed natural for me to learn all these things and help run the business."

But will the tradition continue? The Lins have three sons and four daughters, but they aren't sure that any of them will take over the business. The eldest son tried briefly, but soon found a better job in a factory near Taipei. The youngest son, who is now completing his military serv­ice, has shown an interest in the family business, the couple says, but with his vo­cational training in electronics, they are encouraging him to find a better-paying job. Like many Chinese, the Lins do not worry about themselves because they be­lieve Matsu will care for them. "We will keep on working as long as we can, then close the business if no one is interested in it," says Lin, in a tone so detached and easy that it is hard to believe he is talking about a family business that has operated for three generations.