Soy sauce brewery tour and making your own soy sauce (includes Mitarashi Dango experience)

Established 1918, this third-generation soy sauce shop located on a road leading to Okadera Temple in Asuka Village, Nara Prefecture, uses natural brewing techniques in its soy sauce production. As you enter the brewery, you can feel the live yeast in this mysterious and otherworldly space. Tokuboshi Soy Sauce Factory, which has been producing handmade sauce for generations, will give you an in-depth look at soy sauce and the seldom-seen inside of a soy sauce brewery. After learning about the soy sauce production process, try your hand at making your own soy sauce in a cedar barrel dating back to the Taisho era (1912-1926). Your personalized soy sauce will be complete after bottling and labeling. Then you'll visit a long-standing tofu shop founded over a century ago in Asuka Village to try it out with the soy sauce you made. These handmade soy sauces, fermented slowly in 100-year-old barrels passed down from the first generation of brewers, are sweet and a little thicker than normal, as well as richly aromatic. These handmade soy sauces, each individually made, recall Nara villages of the Manyoshu era (8th century). Take your time and thoroughly appreciate the flavor. After this activity has concluded, you will prepare your own mitarashi dango rice dumplings (skewered rice dumplings in a sweet soy glaze). These dumplings originate from popular local restaurant Imanishi Seishindo, and everything from their ingredients to preparation have been passed down across three generations of parent and child. Ingredients are also carefully chosen before use. The sauce for the rice dumplings is a unique custom sauce made using Tokuboshi soy sauce. Enjoy a luxurious time in a wonderfully renovated old Japanese-style house. (Served with ryokucha green tea)