Experience
Kagawa
Wooden Vats Still at Work at Yamaroku Soy Sauce on Shodoshima
Kagawa
Wooden Vats Still at Work at Yamaroku Soy Sauce on Shodoshima
This image was generated using AI. The actual experience may differ from what is shown.
Overview
Shodoshima is one of Japan's leading soy sauce-producing regions, with a history spanning around 400 years. Yamaroku Soy Sauce, founded roughly 150 years ago, stands in a corner of Hishio no Sato ("Soy Sauce Village"), where more than 20 soy sauce breweries and tsukudani factories still line the streets. Its moromi fermentation warehouse, built in the early Meiji period and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property, continues to ferment soy sauce in giant cedar vats (kioke) that have been in use for over 150 years. Anyone can visit this living brewery free of charge, with no reservation required.
Highlights
In the Yasuda district, dotted with sites on the Shodoshima 88-Temple Pilgrimage associated with Kobo Daishi Kukai, you can step straight into a working brewery. Surrounded by the aroma of moromi and dark, lustrous wooden vats inhabited by fermentation microbes, you experience the site with all five senses—not as an exhibit, but as a living place of production.
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A brewery owner carrying an endangered wooden-vat tradition into the future
Soy sauce brewed in wooden vats is now said to account for only about 1% of all soy sauce made in Japan. Fifth-generation owner Yasuo Yamamoto began training at a vat maker in Sakai, Osaka, in 2012 and launched the Wooden Vat Craftsmen Revival Project, in which brewers themselves build new vats. The annual winter summit draws many participants from overseas as well.
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Flagship Tsuru-bishio: twice-brewed soy sauce aged for about four years
This luxurious method uses raw soy sauce from a first brewing to make a second batch, producing exceptional depth and mellowness. You can also compare it with Kiku-bishio, made with Tanba black soybeans.
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After the tour, stop at Yamaroku Chaya under the brewery eaves
Round off your visit with soy sauce sweets, including ice cream drizzled with Tsuru-bishio and soy sauce pudding available on weekends.
Information
Prices and services are current as of the time of writing and are subject to change.
- Nearest Temple：
- Temple No. 13, Eikoji on the Shodoshima 88-Temple Pilgrimage (in the same Yasuda district as the brewery).*This island pilgrimage is separate from the Shikoku 88-Temple Pilgrimage.
- Duration：
- Brewery tour: approx. 5–10 minutes (allow an additional 20–30 minutes for Yamaroku Chaya)
- Price：
- Brewery tour: free
- Language：
- Official website available in English, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Korean, and French
- Booking：
- Not required (groups of up to 80 people per tour)
- Website：
- Website（English version available）