Soy Sauce Brewer Mrs. Tsang
The woman behind the most expensive soy sauce in Hong Kong, Mrs. Tsang sells her superb brew for a whopping $125 per bottle. But this isn’t any secret family recipe; Mrs. Tsang earned a degree in chemistry in 1954 and runs an 85,000-square-foot factory in Yuen Long. She tells June Ng about her long commute and how she manages to run a business with a skeleton staff.
HK Magazine: How can you run such a huge factory with a staff of three people?
Mrs. Tsang: Right from when I opened my first factory in Sha Tin, I realized that the number of staff you have is meaningless; the only thing that matters is your technique. My goal is to use the simplest method and the least manpower, but with maximum results. My staff have been with me since day one. We’re proud that we can keep the factory clean and tidy—I designed the drainage system myself. I only spent about $3,000 but it was still good enough to be approved by the government. If you asked a contractor to do it for you, it might cost more than $10,000.
HK: What made you start your factory? It’s an unusual move for women of your generation.
T: I decided to start my own business when I found out that my husband had a brain tumor. We met when we were working in the quality-control department of one of the biggest sauce factories in Hong Kong. Life was good; we were both specialists, living in an apartment exceeding 1,500 square feet. We had two children and two maids. But my husband got sick and couldn’t go to work anymore. The family burden fell on me. I had to increase my income, and at that time, women’s wages were always lower than men’s. So I decided to cut down on household expenses and start my own factory.
HK: What makes your soy sauce so special?
T: We use a natural fermentation process; each bottle takes a year to make. We don’t use any additives at all. And that’s not just for our soy sauce, but all our other sauces too. They’re all checked by laboratories in Europe. It’s only in the last seven or eight years that we’ve done local trade; before that, we only exported it.
HK: It was in the news last year that some people in China made fake soy sauce from human hair. Is that really possible?
T: This method’s actually been around since 1957. It’s really quick: the counterfeiters use hydrochloric acid to release the amino acids—a major component in soy sauce—in human hair. But of course, the protein you get from hair and the protein from soybeans are very different.
HK: What has kept you going for more than half a century?
T: Being able to work is a blessing. When I was young I did a lot of track and field events, and now, even though I’m 80, I can still run pretty fast. I have to travel to Yuen Long from Causeway Bay every day, but I don’t find it inconvenient because it proves that I can still walk around! Doing nothing when you grow old will quickly make you miserable.
HK: You’ve been through so much hardship. Do you have any advice to people who are going through tough times?
T: Sitting there and crying is useless. When my husband had his tumor removed, he lost his ability to work, but I was still able to take care of him, run the business and raise two sons. He died 20 years after his operation and I never cried in front of my kids. In the end, you must face your problems and stop avoiding them.