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Can our Japanese writers guess what this pink soy sauce is by taste alone?【Video】

Preston Phro Aug 1, 2015
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Soy sauce is delicious, and it’s by far one of our favorite condiments. It can enhance all manner of foods and make even something as boring as plain tofu delicious. But even as much as we love it, how well do we really know it? For example, could our gourmand Japanese writers figure out they were eating soy sauce even if it didn’t look like soy sauce?

This might seem like a silly question – and it definitely is! But it’s also a legitimate question thanks to the clever food processing skills of a company that also makes pink curry. So, do you think our food-loving writers will be able to identify pink soy sauce? Or will we have the last laugh? Find out below!

You’re probably wondering just what the heck pink soy sauce is, and the answer, it’s just what it sounds like: soy sauce that’s pink! Okay, cheekiness aside, it really is soy sauce that’s pink, but the magic is in how it gets to be pink. Obviously, most soy sauce is a dark- or medium-brown color, but it turns out you can also find “white” soy sauce. White soy sauce is made mostly using wheat with a little bit of soybean, which gives it a lighter and somewhat sweeter flavor. But how does white soy sauce become pink? Easy! Beets!

No, we haven’t misspelled the name of a certain brand of aggressively advertised headphones. We’re actually talking about the root, which, as you may already know, is commonly used for food coloring. The dark purple juice the beet provides can be diluted to create bright pink…well, just about anything you want to be pink! It probably wouldn’t work to well on a birthday cake, but for soy sauce, it’s just want the chef ordered.

Of course, between adding beets for flavoring and starting with white soy sauce, the big question is: Does our pink soy sauce, produced by Hanakifujin in Tottori, actually taste like soy sauce? Well, there’s only one way to find out — it’s time to try tricking our fellow writers!

Our test involved two steps. First, we would ask them to try this mysterious pink goo on some ice cream. And no, we were not inspired by any porn parodies of Ghostbusters.

▼ We used vanilla to ensure the flavor of the soy sauce wouldn’t be masked.

▼ You have to admit, it looks amazing!

Most of our foodie writers were left without much of a clue as to what they’d just put in their mouths! While it was tempting to leave things hanging, we decided to give them something a bit more familiar, by having them taste the soy sauce on some tofu.

▼ Tofu plus…

▼ …pink soy sauce equals…

▼ …delicious?

With a more familiar combination, most of our writers were finally able to identify the mysterious liquid that had been drizzled all over the food. Whether or not they actually liked it, though, was another question. You’ll have to watch the video to find out the full details, but there seemed to be quite a split.

As for this humble writer, I thought the pink soy sauce tasted okay. It does definitely taste like soy sauce, though you might feel like something is lacking. It’s also not quite as smooth as most of the soy sauce I’ve had. There a slight graininess to it, but not enough to be distracting.

So, should you buy pink soy sauce? Well, if you love pink stuff and you want to dress up your tofu, then I would recommend it. But all-in-all, at 1,830 yen (US$14.73) a bottle, not including shipping, it’s probably not worth it. If you are interested, you can find pink soy sauce online here and here.