kikkoman

But after tasting a wide variety of soy sauce I would describe kikkoman's profile as salty, metallic and stout-beer like.

Isnt kikkoman one of the only mainstream brands that makes soy sauce the traditional way?

As a big counterexample, Kikkoman is popular enough in the USA to carry in mainstream grocery stores, and is a legitimate soy sauce.

I added kikkoman soy sauce to my food from the moment I stopped eating baby food.

In contrast, at my local Walmart, a 15-oz bottle of La Choy is priced +50% higher than its (subjectively superior) Kikkoman alternative of the same size!

For me I always have Kikkoman in the fridge (especially because thats what wife grew up with) as the staple soy sauce.

The Kikkoman gluten free variant is also labelled as tamari.

Also that Kikkoman was unable to replicate the process.

For example, I find kikkoman to be absolutely awful for fried rice.

But there is also a relatively wide range of flavor within the koikuchi category, and the US-made Kikkoman sauce that many people are familiar with is not very flavorful.

I grew up on kikkoman, view it as the soy sauce equivalent of Heinz ketchup or Best Foods/Hellmans mayonnaise and still cook with it all the time.

I probably don't agree with Kikkoman one.

The Kikkoman is "just soy sauce" as I've always known it, and sipping it off a spoon tastes like a mistake.

Specialty markets sell imported Kikkoman products, such as “traditionally brewed” soy sauce which tastes stronger.

Kikkoman is the most popular brand in the West AND in Japan, which is a koikuchi shoyu, which is the "standard" shoyu type in Japan.

..." Kikkoman introduced this bottle in 1961, and a favourite of mine because it's easy to locate and use.

As to whether the Yamaroku is worth 10x Kikkoman..

Once you step outside the usual suspects like Kikkoman, there's a whole world of nuance out there.

Kikkoman has a double-fermented soy sauce in their product line, brewing starts with their regular soy sauce instead of salt water.