鳳梨, 芒果, 芭樂: Pineapples, Mangoes, and Guavas

Plus the release of Time, Terroir, Taiwan—our soy sauce documentary

Welcome to Yun Hai Taiwan Stories, a newsletter about Taiwanese food culture by Lisa Cheng Smith, founder of Yun Hai Taiwanese Pantry.

Our soy sauce documentary was just released; watch it here. Plus, we’re launching a Kickstarter for Taiwanese Dried Fruits on Tuesday as a response to China’s Pineapple Ban. Read more below or sign up for early bird discounts.

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The Pineapple Ban and a Taiwanese Dried Fruit Kickstarter

In March, China banned all imports of Taiwanese Pineapples, a move that was viewed by the international community as political. This was a huge blow to Pineapple farmers because 90% of exports were purchased by China, until the ban. This left them scrambling to figure out where to sell their harvest.

After the ban was announced, locals in Taiwan and friends in Asia made a big effort to consume more pineapples with the #freedompineapple campaign—Japan just bought 17 metric tons. It’s a powerful trend, but not a long term solution.

Golden Diamond Pineapples at a wholesale market in Tainan

When we heard news of the ban, we jumped into action. We, too, wanted to purchase Taiwanese pineapple, but it was almost impossible to do this in the United States. So, we hatched a plan to offer dried Pineapple (and other fruits) to our audience, a product that’s been at the top of our list anyway. Our long-term goal is to offer more trade options for farmers in Taiwan by creating demand for Taiwanese dried fruit here in the US. We immediately started sourcing fruit, and after weeks of planning and research, have settled on several independent farmers and farmer’s coops who grow fruit in the best growing regions in Taiwan. They dry their fruit over low heat, using no additives.

The dried fruit we’ve selected. So much texture! No or low sugar! You can’t smell it through the screen but you’d freak if you could.

We need your help!

We need to act quickly, so we can catch the upcoming harvest. In order to fund this buy, we've set up a Kickstarter where you can preorder premium dried Golden Diamond Pineapple, Irwin Mangoes and Pearl Guava. As soon as we hit our goal, we’ll put our first order in and get to work.

The Kickstarter is launching HERE on Tuesday, April 20th. Sign up for a launch notification at that link and get access to Early Bird discounts. Please share the link as far and wide as possible! Taiwanese farmers need more export channels for their fruit; let’s make a difference!

Dried fruit packaging concepts by Hyphen Works, a New York and Taipei based creative and marketing practice

Time, Terroir, Taiwan: Soy Sauce Brewing in Xi Luo

Now Playing on YouTube

Yu-Tu Hsieh inspecting fermenting soy sauce at Yu Ding Xing brewery in XiLuo

Thanks to everyone who attended the premiere of Time, Terroir, Taiwan: Soy Sauce Brewing in XiLuo. We had a great time and enjoyed hearing from you and answering all your questions.

A couple of things I learned:

• I knew Yu Ding Xing’s Pineapple Soy Sauce (another great #freedompineapple product) was fermented with real pineapples, but I didn’t know it was an idea that Yi-Cheng, the oldest son of the soy sauce brewer, pitched to his family after having some 蔭鳳梨, a Taiwanese relish made by mixing fresh pineapple with licorice and koji-inoculated soybeans. Yi-Cheng, who described himself as a rebel, really wanted to bring new life to their products, so he pushed his family to make a soy sauce based on this condiment. It worked, and they’ve followed it with more fruit soy sauces, using the same method to incorporate citrus and mulberry. This year, they’re working on lychee soy sauce — Yi-Cheng said the memory of hand peeling so many lychee won’t fade anytime soon.

蔭鳳梨 Taiwanese Pineapple Relish with koji-inoculated soybeans (photo by LTN)

• We had lots of great questions about their Koji (Qu Jun, 麴菌) and learned that the microorganism cultures that transform the soybeans into soy sauce are unique to each brewery and develop and grow with each batch. The organisms are in the vats, in the air and on the equipment. Even if they wanted to change the particular koji culture, they couldn’t just buy new culture and start using it. The older koji bacteria is more established and would overpower the new. In order to make any significant changes, it can take a year or more. So, the taste of Yu Ding Xing’s soy sauce is reliant on their particular culture of microorganisms. The history and the development of their soy sauce is evident in the flavor of every batch.

  

  Behind the scenes with the Chen Office crew at Yu Ding Xing

  We invite you to watch the mini-documentary. We’re really proud of it and hope that it puts Taiwanese soy sauce on the radar of more people. Please help us spread the word by liking, commenting, or subscribing. Each action you take will help us gain more visibility in the YouTube algorithm, which will go a long way towards raising awareness about Taiwan’s traditional soy sauce. If you’re interested in trying these soy sauces, you can get them here.

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