Ono soy sauce

A sweet soy sauce from the port area of the city.

The Ono Company is located by the port of Kanazawa, where many old soy sauce breweries are located. Some of the breweries are facilitated with galleries and souvenir shops, where many different kinds of soy sauce and miso parts are sold. It is possible to participate in guided tours of the breweries upon reservation. The Ono company also offers its very popular soy ice cream in their shops.

The Ono Company’s history goes back 400 years. The 3rd lord of the Maeda Clan of Kanazawa ordered a townsman called Ihei Naoeya to study the brewing process of soy sauce in the early 17th century. He studied the brewer techniques at Kisyu Yuasa, the birthplace of soy sauce.

The Ono brewery is located by the port of Kanazawa due to its favorable location; close to the Hakusan Mountains with their abundance of clean water and close the port where ships sail for the northern island of Hokkaido, which’ humidity is perfect for fermentation processes.

The Soy sauce from Ono is much different from the soy sauce brewed in central Japan. Their colour is somewhere between that of salty soy sauce and that of thick soy sauce. The Ono soy sauce tastes mild and sweet. Kanazawa became one of the five areas in Japan to produce the most soy sauce in the feudal era. The other four areas are Noda, Choshi, Tatsuno and Shodoshima.

The Ono soy sauce is brewed in a traditional manner. Malted rice is added during the fermentation process to make the soy sauce milder and sweeter. This traditional way of brewing soy sauce had been put into a hiatus until last year due to the high production costs. The traditionally brewed sauce is called Ono Murasaki. Another product, brewed in big wooden casks is sold under the name “Kioke murasaki”.
The experience of the traditional dishes of Kanazawa gets even better with the addition of the traditional soy sauces.