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It is mentioned in the Nagasaki Trading Firm Journal of 1687 that 20 barrels of soy sauce produced in Kyoto (1 barrel contains approximately 29.104 litres) was shipped to Sri Lanka Trading HQ. It is believed to have been manufactured by a sake brewer in Kyoto. At that time, Sakai was famous in the Keihan region for its soy sauce production but Kyoto had grown to be another production site for soy sauce, as good as the ones produced in Sakai. The amount of sake (rice wine) exported was always larger than the amount of soy sauce exports. The records of the exported sake produced in Kyoto appeared for the first time in 1670 in the Nagasaki Trading Firm Journal. In the Batavia Castle Diary, sake produced in Kyoto was recorded as a special gift to the emperor, called the imperial rice wineE In Batavia, soy sauce produced in Kyoto was also treated as a high-quality "imperial soy sauce", which may be described today as "soy sauce made only for the Emperor". There are records of exported soy sauce produced in Kyoto in the Nagasaki Trading Firm Journal until 1692. In the Meian Cho-hoki (investigation records by a person named Meian) which describes practical trading operations in Nagasaki from 1764 to 1780, no records on soy sauce made outside of Sakai are found. The soy sauce in Sakai was made by 4 manufacturers, including Shobei Hosoya. Soy sauce produced in Sakai was transported by ships from Sakai called the Sakai Raw Silk Carrier Boat or the Sakai Bune. These ships had been authorized to carry imported raw silk from Nagasaki since the Keicho Period of the Edo Era. The ship was empty going back from Sakai to Nagasaki and the space was used for soy sauce exports. Based on this data, soy sauce exported to the Netherlands was mainly made in Sakai, while the Kyoto soy sauce was exported in a small amount for special occasions. In the Chinese and Western Freight Log, the trading of extremely low-priced soy sauce by Chinese ships is mentioned, leading us to believe that soy sauce made locally in Kyushu was also exported. However, it is safe to say that none of the soy sauce exported during the Edo Era was produced in the Kanto Region. |
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