Properties: Sour and salty, neutral

Meridans Entered:
Primary: None given

1. Clears Heat and resolves Toxicity
   Toxicity from medicines, fish, meat, some vegetables, mushrooms, burns, snake bites and worms
2. Stops vexation and fullness
   Indigestion, bloating and discomfort

Suggested Daily Dosage: 3-30 ml in food or added to a decoction.

Cautions: Sodium content may make it unsuitable for people with high blood pressure.

Notes:

Taken from the Materia Dietetica (Shiwu Bencao 食物本草) by Lu He 卢和 from the Ming Dynasty. Soy Sauce is described in the following fashion:

醬　味酸鹹，氣汁利，除熱，止煩滿，殺百藥、魚肉、菜蕈及湯火、蛇蟲等毒。純豆者佳，豆麵合作及純面者俱不及。麵醬亦無毒，但不能殺諸毒。

[Soy] Sauce: Flavour: Sour and salty, its qi juice is favourable, it eliminates heat, stops vexation and fullness, and weakens the poison of the hundred medicines, fish, meat, some vegetables, mushrooms, hot water and fire, snakes and worms and so forth. The pure beans are the most exquisite; without exception the bean flour mixed with pure flour is not as good. Flour sauce is also non-poison, but it is unable to weaken all poisons.

The traditional method of manufacture is as follows:

• Soak soybeans in spring water overnight.
• Cook the soy beans until they are rather mushy (250 grams).
• Let them cool off.
• Roast wheat berries (optional).
• Add wheat berries to the soy beans on a tray by mixing them in evenly.
• Add Koji culture (a strain of Aspergillus oryzae, a fungus used for various culinary purposes) to the tray by gently stirring it in.
• Let it ferment under a muslin or cheese cotton cloth for a few days until a sweet smelling white fungus has formed.
• Add the mix to brine (ratio salt: water 1: 6-7) in a 2 litre container.
• Cover the container with muslin or cheese cloth.
• Stir daily to prevent unhealthy mould until about 6 weeks.
• Stir once a week from week 6 until the end (approx. 14 months).
• Over time the colour will become darker.