We know a fair bit about European foods having traveled there multiple times and gotten to know producers of different foods from different countries. But there’s a whole other direction our tastebuds need to go: west.

Well, west for me, but I suppose it’s better known as the East. Thanks to our sister restaurant here in Ann Arbor—Miss Kim’s and their lunch spot Little Kim—we’re learning more and more about Korean cuisine and the best ways to enjoy it. Some of us are even getting pretty good cooking Korean food, but that’s a slow process.

More and more we’re learning about the ingredients Ji Hye (the “Kim” in Miss Kim’s) grew up with and what might work on our shelves. Introducing customers to new foods is always fun but it comes with challenges. When you’re talking about Korean cooking when you’re surrounded by classic Italian, French and Spanish fare is almost intimidating…I’m still trying to learn about Europe and now I’m switching continents?

Yes and no. Turns out there’s a lot of similarities in the process of how different areas of the world make different foods. This soy sauce is a good example. To me, it’s similar to making cheese or—better yet—balsamic vinegar. In short, here’s how it goes:

Whole soybeans are cooked as well as wheat, mixed, inoculated with a mold to form a culture called “koji”. It waits around a few days, developing the enzymes that will break down the proteins into amino acids, and the starches into sugars. They mix in brine (in this case, a lighter salted brine) and let it ferment for months or longer. That’s a lot like balsamic vinegar (in a way): the grapes are cooked down, a ‘mother’ bacteria is added to teach the other bacteria how to break down the grape juice, and then it sits around for years developing its character and flavor.

Cheese is basically the same: take a raw product, introduce mold/bacteria/starter cultures to get it going, and then get out of the way and don’t screw it up.

There’s another “technique” that they use to make this soy sauce in particular, but I’m not sure I buy it…you be the judge:

While the soy sauce is fermenting in the tanks that sit underground, they play Mozart music for the microbes working in the tanks. Supposedly, the vibrations of classical music—and Mozart in particular—encourages more microbial activity, which over time develops a deeper, richer, umami-er, soy sauce that’s unlike any other. Like I said: you be the judge.

But it does taste really, really good. I notice a bit more sweetness than in other soy sauces…like it’s not quite as salty as the “normal stuff”. The umami is big in this one, too, so it just tastes like…more. This happened with olive oil and good vinegar, too. Slowly, the “real stuff” made in traditional ways started to make it to our shelves. Even though they were much more expensive than the stuff folks were used to, over time we all came to appreciate the difference. I think we’re on the cusp of that with soy sauce.