The Centuries of Craftsmanship of Japanese Premium Soy Milk

Did you know that Japanese soy milk is the culmination of 10,000 years of history of soy foods in Japan? Soybeans arrived at the end of the neolithic period, an age of hunting and gathering and very limited agriculture. To name all the ways that soybeans have been made into foods and flavorings in Japan would require a much longer essay – a book, perhaps! Soy is so integral to Japan’s culinary heritage that miso soup and rice are the only two required features of a traditional Japanese meal called washoku. The rest of the components consist of side dishes that change seasonally, locally, or according to preference. In other words, you can’t have traditional Japanese cooking without soybeans.

Working backward from the technology used to make soy milk today provides a lens to the centuries of history of the development of soy milk craftsmanship. I like to compare Japanese soy milk with premium sake. Sake has more than 1,200 years of history in Japan, but premium sake only appeared 100 years ago, thanks to the development of milling technology. What legally defines premium sake in Japan is the milling rate, the degree the rice is polished. Besides removing the bran, milling removes fats and other elements that affect the sake’s taste, leaving the starchy core needed for fermentation. To make table sake, 30% of the grain is milled away. That percentage rises to 40% for premium (ginjō) sake, while super premium (daiginjō) sake has a half or more of the kernel milled away. The more the rice is milled, the more subtle and refined the flavor becomes. Premium sake has an ethereal taste, with aromatics reminiscent of melon and apple. Before the twentieth century, brewers could not even mill rice to the rate of modern table sake. When comparing sake to soy milk, conventional soy milk is similar to this premodern sake with only the outside (the shell) removed. Premium soy milk, like premium sake, only uses the core of the bean, eliminating the elements that negatively affect the fragrance and taste. That’s why premium soy milk, or Japanese soy milk, offers a more refined taste than its conventional counterpart. Similar to premium sake, the liquid from the solids is only extracted once for Japanese soy milk. On the other hand, makers of conventional soy milk, like table sake, press the mash multiple times to increase yield, which can negatively affect flavor.

Built on the time-honored wisdom of mothers who had long used the beverage as a substitute for breast milk, drinking soy milk became popularized in the twentieth century. With the arrival of Western foods in the late 1800s, soy milk provided a native alternative to cow’s milk as Japan never had a tradition of drinking cow’s milk, or of eating much beef, due to an absence of rangeland for cattle. Thus, soy milk was a natural, healthy drink that resonated with centuries of culinary traditions.

Soy milk also shares in a long tradition of valuing soy foods in Japan. Farmers called soybeans “the meat of field” reflecting their importance to the diet as a source of protein, calcium, and iron. In traditional households, even those of the samurai, the entire family made miso together. While it is rare to find homemade miso today, drinking soy milk offers a healthy taste of tradition and an understanding about the important role of craftsmanship in the long history of Japanese soy foods.

Want to learn even more about Japanese soy milk? You can find more information here.