老抽 | Sybaritica

A few days ago, I featured Lee Kum Kee’s varieties of Light Soy Sauces. In that post I explained that the Chinese classification of soy sauces, as opposed to the western division into ‘light’ and ‘dark’, makes a distinction based on when the liquid, eventually to be sold as soy sauce, is drawn or ‘pulled’ off the fermenting soy bean mash. Light soy sauces are ‘early pulled’ (and identified as 生抽) while the dark type, or 老抽 (lǎo chōu) is ‘old pull’ soy sauce, meaning it is drawn off the mash at a later stage.

The dark soy sauces tend to be thicker and less salty than the ‘early pull’ light varieties and are more commonly used as a condiment rather than in cooking (although the dark types are typically used in the Chinese ‘red-cooked’ style of dish). Lee Kum Kee produces a number of dark types and, recently, I sampled their Premium Dark Soy Sauce and Mushroom Flavored Dark Soy. I can say, in advance, that while the Lee Kum Kee Premium Light Soy Sauce is an excellent product, the dark varieties I tasted are not… Read more