Teng Junkang, one inheritor of Zhejiang's traditional soy sauce making techniques, tastes the fermented paste in a vat.[Photo from WeChat account aixinsx]

The charming Zhejiang city of Shaoxing is closely connected with a time-honored culture of producing fermented goods. Among these specialties are a trio, known by locals as the 'three vats', namely yellow rice wine, soy sauce, and clothing dye.

Among these, soy sauce has long stood as a vital condiment and cooking ingredient in Chinese cuisine and no place is this truer than in Zhejiang where the sauce has long played a key role.  

In the past, whenever locals faced a shortage of vegetables, it was soy sauce that came to the rescue and provided flavor for otherwise plain bowls of rice. Over time, Zhejiang soy sauce became widely commercially desirable and today it is exported all around the world. 

The earliest soy sauce mill in Shaoxing Yuhexing dates from 1644 and from this time the local industry gradually grew. The 1930s is widely considered to be the greatest phase of Shaoxing's soy sauce prosperity with the small city producing a total of 300,000 cans of fermented bean curds and 50,000 vats of soy sauce annually.

Soy sauce continues to be something of an unparalleled delicacy for Shaoxing residents; they stew duck, pickle vegetables, and ferment bean curds all using the dark savory sauce. However, the popularity of soy sauce cannot simply be explained by its high-nutrition and full-bodied flavor, the liquid holds a memory of old times because some continue to produce it using traditional techniques.