About this tour
A 2.5-hour hands-on workshop at a 100-year-old family soy sauce brewery in Nara where you'll tour the fermentation process, press moromi using a traditional wooden press, bottle and label your own batch, then taste it fresh over tofu. You'll also sample mitarashi dumplings made with the brewery's signature sauce. Suited to anyone curious about Japanese food traditions and keen to take home a bottle they've made themselves.
Highlights
- Tour a three-generation brewery operating continuously since 1918
- Press fresh soy sauce from moromi using traditional wooden equipment
- Hand-squeeze soy sauce with the brewery's custom squeezer tool
- Label and bottle your own personalized soy sauce to take home
- Taste unpasteurised freshly pressed soy sauce with fresh tofu
- Try mitarashi dumplings made with brewery's proprietary sauce
- Learn natural-brewing fermentation methods firsthand
What to expect
You'll start with a guided tour through the brewery, seeing how soy sauce has been made there for over a century. The brewery will explain their fermentation process and the role of moromi—the fermented soybean and wheat base—in creating soy sauce.
Next comes the hands-on part: you'll use the traditional wooden press (and the brewery's custom squeezer) to extract soy sauce from moromi. Once pressed, you'll pour your batch into a bottle, design and attach your own label, then taste it fresh alongside silken tofu. You'll finish with a snack of mitarashi dumplings coated in the brewery's special sauce.
What travellers say
- Genuine multigenerational brewery with century-plus history and expertise
- Tangible take-home: you press, bottle and label your own sauce
- Rare access to unpasteurised fresh soy sauce and traditional pressing method
- Intimate group experience in a working production space, not a tourist stage set
- Tasting paired with fresh tofu and local dumplings, not generic samples
- Not suitable for people with cardiovascular concerns or limited mobility
- No transport included; public options nearby but navigation required beforehand
- Workshop is hands-on but brief; limited time for questions or deep history
Themes summarised by our team from public information about this tour. Verify specifics on the operator's page before booking.
Good to know
This experience appeals to food enthusiasts, Japanese culture buffs, and anyone wanting a tangible souvenir tied to a working heritage business. No cooking or fermentation knowledge is needed—the brewery handles the technical setup. The brewery is not recommended for people with poor cardiovascular health. The location is accessible by public transport; there's no private car included. Expect a small-group format in an active working brewery environment. The experience includes snacks but not transport to the site. Bottle weight and contents (liquid soy sauce) should factor into luggage planning if you're flying.
Tour sold and operated by Viator via Viator. Descriptions on this page are original BookNow summaries written by our team — not copied from the operator. Prices and availability are confirmed at checkout.