Xiamen Gulong Co. Ltd.

On Friday the 29th June, in the afternoon the group visited Xiamen Gulong Co. Ltd, where we learnt the production process of soya beans. Personally, not only did I find this visit unique I also gained a new found respect at the time and effort it takes to make soya sauce in its various flavours. Xiamen Gulong Soy Sauce Cultural Park is situated in the Tong’an district of Xiamen, with the park winning a GuinnessWorld Record for having the most traditional soy sauce jars inits yard of 50,000 square meters at 55,559 jars with the most ancient ones dating back to the Qing Dynasty.

The majority of the visit consisted of us listening to a spokeswoman and looking at various artefacts to do with soya bean production. The spokeswoman went over the production process very throughly where we were told naturally brewed soy sauce is made using only four basic ingredients: soybeans, wheat, salt and water. There are two ways of making soya sauce; the ancient method and the industrial soy sauce-making- we mainly learnt about the latter. The genetically modified soya beans are steam heated fermentation in large fibre glass vats along with tons of the other ingredients. The most common production cycle lasts three months. However, in terms of nutrition there is limited range of amino acids and long time storage of the sauce spoils the flavour. At the end of the tour we tried samples of the different soya sauce flavours from chilli to  meat soya sauce, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Overall, I believe this is a must excursion for anyone future Xiamen visitors. Not only because in 2013, the park was voted in the top 10 most popular scenic spots outside Xiamen Island by tourists and residents but it has received nearly 450,000 visitors which highlights its popularity, globally.

Hartej Haer