The Hualien Golden Sauce Awards recognize the best local sauces built around Hualien's own ingredients, and the Hualien Good Brew brand they created gives more people the chance to discover and taste the region's finest. The winners of the second Golden Sauce Awards in 2024 bring Hualien ingredients together with traditional craft, creating distinctive flavors and representing both the innovation and the continuity of Hualien agriculture.
[A Century of Soy Sauce: Heritage and Innovation]
Yi Pin Chun has carried its family's soy sauce brewing craft through a hundred years. Fourth-generation successors Zhanyi and Peiyu chose to come home to Hualien and continue it. They kept the traditional method intact while holding to a principle of natural, healthy and additive-free production, following the old techniques and letting the sauce ferment naturally for a full year. That discipline gives their soy sauce a flavor that, in their view, stands above Japanese soy sauce.
To meet market demand, Zhanyi and Peiyu have also put work into new products. Noticing how many customers asked whether they made a thick soy paste, they developed Yu Chun Taro Nectar Soy Sauce using taro, a Hualien staple. The taro's natural starch replaces chemical thickeners, giving the sauce a texture between soy sauce and soy paste along with taro's natural sweetness.
[Community Development Meets Industry Development]
The Qixingtan Community Development Association set out to promote tourism and build local industry. Under chairman You Huang-ming, residents hand-make Ocean Flavor Peanut Butter from Hualien No. 9 peanuts, grown in the area's naturally sandy coastal soil. Getting there was not easy, and reconciling the methods of different makers before settling on a standardized process took real work, but they held to using only local peanuts and deep ocean water sea salt, preserving the peanut's most original flavor and producing something quite unlike anything else on the market. Ocean Flavor Peanut Butter has brought income into the community and drawn residents together, becoming the community's signature product.
[Pomelo Blossom, Used Well, Makes Many Flavors]
The Ruisui Township Farmers' Association works to promote the processing of local produce, developing Pomelo Blossom Tea Fermented Tofu from Ruisui's own pomelo blossom and tea leaves. The clean sweetness of pomelo blossom tea marries with the salty richness of fermented tofu, and the delicate tea aroma brings a fresh note to a traditional product. Along the way the association worked closely with farmers, overcame the problem of limited seasonal pomelo blossom tea yields, and, through a partnership with Sin Wei Soy Sauce, solved the short shelf life of the raw produce.
Yu Hui Foods' Pomelo Bitter Melon began as a way to help farmers hit by typhoons, processing their produce to extend its shelf life. Ming-hui turned what had been a cold appetizer on the family table into a commercial product, pairing his own award-winning sauce with chilled wild bitter melon and adding Ruisui pomelo peel to create something both crisp and fragrant. To get past the bitterness of wild bitter melon, he developed a machine to slice it thin, giving it a crisp bite. He has pushed hard on distribution too, talking to five-star hotels and even entering the Japanese market, in the hope of putting the product in front of more people.
[Old Methods, Modern Eating]
Ge Xiangyi's Cha no Ko brand grew out of a longing for the taste of home, carrying forward fifty years of his mother's traditional method and using Hualien black soybeans and high-mountain tea. The product ferments naturally with no preservatives, keeping the pure flavor of the ingredients intact, with high-mountain tea adding a lingering sweetness and fragrance. Cha no Ko is made entirely by hand, and the hardest part is the sun-drying, which depends on reading the weather and catching the right season. Ge Xiangyi emphasizes the nutritional value of douchi, or fermented black soybeans, and how many dishes it can go into, hoping more people will rediscover a traditional taste that modern eaters have largely forgotten.
Hualien's sauce industry is thriving, and the stories behind these award-winning brands show not only how much the people of Hualien care about local agriculture and how readily they innovate, but also their commitment to quality and their respect for tradition. They have brought traditional craft and local ingredients together to create distinctive flavors, and they are pushing into new markets so that Hualien's best sauces reach a wider audience.
Cooking with Hualien Good Brew: Distinctive Ways to Wake Up the Palate
1. Yi Pin Chun Yu Chun Taro Nectar Soy Sauce
- Flavor profile: taro, a Hualien staple, replaces the thickener, giving a texture between soy sauce and soy paste with taro's natural sweetness.
- Everyday use:
- As a dipping sauce: good with turnip cake, egg crepes and the like, adding depth of flavor.
- Creative cooking:
- Braised pork: the thicker texture helps the sauce cling to the ingredients, so braised pork takes on more flavor along with a natural sweetness.
- Tip:
- Suits diners who prefer a sweeter profile.
2. Qixingtan Community Development Association Ocean Flavor Peanut Butter
- Flavor profile: hand-made from Hualien No. 9 peanuts and deep ocean water sea salt, keeping the peanut's most original flavor.
- Everyday use:
- Spread on toast: the classic pairing, simple and good.
- Salad dressing: stir it into a salad for added flavor and body.
- Dipping sauce: works as a dip with a range of ingredients.
- Creative cooking:
- Into cooked dishes: worth trying in more cooked applications, folded into a stir-fry or other dishes.
- Tips:
- Ocean Flavor Peanut Butter is savory, not the sweet peanut butter usually found on the shelf.
- Once opened, finish it reasonably quickly to keep it fresh.
3. Ruisui Township Farmers' Association Pomelo Blossom Tea Fermented Tofu
- Flavor profile: the clean sweetness of pomelo blossom tea with the salty richness of fermented tofu, fine and smooth on the palate.
- Everyday use:
- Breakfast with congee: the salty richness of fermented tofu against plain congee is a fine way to start the day.
- In cold dishes: use it directly in cold vegetable dishes for added flavor and complexity.
- To lift stir-fried greens: a little fermented tofu in stir-fried greens adds aroma and cuts the greasiness.
- Creative cooking:
- Fermented tofu chicken: folding it into a chicken dish adds tea aroma and fermented tofu character, for a flavor that is genuinely its own.
- Tips:
- Serve alongside pomelo blossom tea to bring the tea aroma forward.
- Adjust the quantity to taste for different results.
4. Yu Hui Foods Pomelo Bitter Melon
- Flavor profile: Ruisui pomelo peel with the award-winning sauce, a sweet-sour profile set against the crispness of wild bitter melon.
- Everyday use:
- Chilled, as a cold dish: take it straight from the fridge and eat it as is, the simplest way to enjoy it.
- Creative cooking:
- Stir-fry: add it during stir-frying for crispness and pomelo aroma.
- Steamed fish: lay it over the fish and steam to lift the flavor and aroma.
- Salad: add it to a salad for texture and flavor.
- Soup: add it to a soup for flavor and complexity.
5. Ge Xiangyi Cha no Ko Tea-Leaf Douchi
- Flavor profile: naturally fermented by the traditional method with high-mountain tea added, giving the douchi a mellow, lingering sweetness.
- Everyday use:
- With rice: stir-fry the tea-leaf douchi with dried chili and serve over rice, simple and good.
- Vegetarian salad: stir it into a vegetable salad for flavor and nutrition.
- Creative cooking:
- Braised pork ribs: use it in pork rib dishes for added depth of flavor.
- Steamed fish: lay it over the fish and steam to lift the umami and aroma.
- Stir-fried meat: add it when stir-frying meat to make the meat taste fuller, with a note of tea.
- Tip:
- Tea-leaf douchi pairs well with aromatics such as garlic and garlic shoots.
All of these award-winning sauces are now listed on ifoodmap (食材地圖). To discover more Hualien Golden Sauce Award winners, visit ifoodmap and start matching.