Yu Ding Xing

豆豉

Name: Fermented Black Beans, Stand-Up Pouch
Brand: Yu Ding Xing
SKU: YX03012H
Price: 12.00 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5.0 (8 reviews)

Fermented Black Beans, Stand-Up Pouch

$12.00

$16.00

(8)

Quantity

Large (200g)

The first step in making soy sauce is to inoculate black soy beans with koji bacteria and culture them in handwoven bamboo baskets. After this first step, the inoculated soybeans are mixed with water and salt and cultured for 180 days in earthenware vessels undisturbed under the sun. But first, small batches of these savory black bean nuggets, known as douchi, are extracted for use in daily cooking as an ingredient related to, but distinct from soy sauce.

These black beans are used in familiar dishes like Ma Po Tofu, Clams (or anything) with black bean sauce, and the Taiwanese dish Fly Head (chives, ground pork, and black beans). Unlike most dry fermented black beans, these are immediately packaged to preserve their moisture and thus remain soft and succulent.
These are incredible—the only small batch, hand fermented Chinese black bean you can buy in the USA.

Tasting Notes and Usage

salty, fragrant, umami, with notes of chocolate

Ingredients and Instructions

Non-GMO black soybeans, Australian sea salt.
200 g.
Gluten-Free
Shelf stable for 2 years from printed manufacturing date. Keep refrigerated after opening.
Sift and rinse before using to remove the salt cyrstals.

About Yu Ding Xing

Based in Xi Luo, Taiwan, Yu Ding Xing 御鼎興 is a family-owned soy sauce brewery founded in 1947. They hand make their soy sauces and soy pastes the traditional way: sun-brewed in giant earthenware vessels (many of which have been in use for decades), then cooked slowly over a wood-burning fire.

While tradition is their foundation, under the leadership of third-generation operators Yi-Cheng and Yi-Che Hsieh, the brewery blends inherited know-how with experimental impulse and collaborative spirit to expand the boundaries of soy sauce production. Think soy sauce brewed with Taiwan-grown pineapples or soy paste mixed with local miso.

As with coffee or wine, Yu Ding Xing's ethos and practice illuminate how technique and terroir contribute to the flavor and body of a soy sauce. Learn more about their history and production process in our mini-documentary Time, Terroir, Taiwan.

SKU: YX03012H

REUSABLE POUR SPOUT

FOR A NO-MESS POUR

Save $1 on a single pour spout for each bottle of soy sauce purchased. Discount applies automatically in cart.

Not suitable for soy pastes, which already flow slowly.

STARTING WITH THE RIGHT BEAN

Taiwanese soy sauce begins with the black soybean. Compared to yellow soybean, its higher protein content produces deeper umami flavor when fermented. Yu Ding Xing also produces soy sauce in the Chinese and Japanese traditions using a blend of soybeans.

INTRODUCING KOJI culture

After the soybeans are pressure cooked, Yu Ding Xing inoculates them with koji culture. For Taiwanese-style soy sauce, they add toasted rice bran to assist the koji with fermentation, whereas for Chinese or Japanese-style soy sauce, they add wheat.

Fermenting Flavor in Clay Vats

Following a few days of initial fermentation, the beans are rinsed, mixed with sea salt and water, then packed into a terracotta vat to ferment under the sun for at least six months. Many vats at Yu Ding Xing are decades-old.

ROASTING OVER A WOOD FIRE

The brew is extracted from the vat, pressed, then heated over a wood fire to stop the fermentation process. Although labor-intensive, slow-cooking the soy sauce over a fire enhances its flavor.