One of the essentials of the Japanese pantry, White Tamari can be loosely described as a gluten-free soy sauce. The more known soy sauce (shoyu) is made with almost equal parts soy and wheat, plus salt, koji and water. Tamari on the other hand, while it is soy sauce, it’s a kind that doesn’t have or has very small amount of wheat. Tamari is a centuries-old sauce – it was created as a by-product of miso back in the 15th century.
The higher amount of soy means that Tamari is more intensely and deeply-flavored as compared to traditional shoyu. It’s filled with umami, so tamari is the perfect addition to many dishes, bringing depth of flavor and a miso-like taste to dishes. Serve it with rice, stews to bring out the richness of the ingredients, traditional egg drop soup, miso broth, and all manner of recipes. It’s less salty than shoyu, so it blends in more seamlessly, and it’s light coloring means it doesn’t change the aesthetic of a dish. It’s specially suited for sashimi, specifically for dipping, but it’s also great for cooking, since it can stand up to prolonged heat and cooking, while traditional soy sauce loses a lot of its flavor when exposed to heat.
Nitto Jozo has been producing artisan white tamari since 1938, using spring water from the Toyota mountains, Japanese wheat (this tamari is not suitable for gluten free diets), and sea salt.