Yeah. There's two things here that can be conflated. For instance, here's the ingredient list of La Choy soy sauce: Water, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Corn Syrup,

Yeah. There's two things here that can be conflated. For instance, here's the ingredient list of La Choy soy sauce: Water, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Corn Syrup, Salt, Caramel Color, Lactic Acid, Potassium Sorbate (Preservative). Contains Soy. This is pretty clearly a "fake" soy sauce, in that it's not brewed, and there are additives made to simulate the flavor and color from a long brew. But here's the ingredients of Kikkoman, which you can find in almost any grocery store in the US: Water, Soybeans, Wheat, Salt That's a real brewed product. There are differences in brewing technique between a product made at scale like Kikkoman and the shoyu this article is about. But it's still fundamentally the same product. Which is not to say people shouldn't seek out traditionally brewed shoyu. But if you're using La Choy or generic store brand soy sauce, you can get a lot of the improvement in flavor you're going to get out of a traditional shoyu from just buying Kikkoman. And if you want to experiment beyond that, try Kikkoman or San-J tamari varieties. EDIT: It's sort of like the difference between barrel aged beer/wine/spirits and aged differently. It's certainly more expensive (all else being equal) and different. It's not necessarily better.