Pearl River Bridge Superior Dark Soy Sauce, Plastic Bottles, 16.9 oz

Sweet and light

I have to say that this is a very good dark soy sauce. It really does put a nice color of brown to rice and noodles and it's actually a little thicker than the normal dark soy sauces you see. I would completely suggest this.

Great taste

I have recently started to make some Asian recipes and some have called for dark soy sauce to add umami, so I bought this one based on cooking website recommendations and reviewer comments. It tastes nothing like regular soy sauce, it's more pungent and earthy tasting. You can tell that it's flavor is designed to work with other flavors in your stir fry or whatever dish you're making and not to be used alone like regular soy sauce on sushi rolls, etc. It adds umami. I expected it to be thicker and taste very salty, given the high sodium content, but the other ingredients seem to take over more. The consistency is more like a slightly watery version of real maple syrup. After some other reviewers mentioned about this product containing lead, I searched the bottle for anything referring to this, and was a bit alarmed to see a small warning in very small - and I mean magnifying glass VERY small - print saying that consuming this may expose you to lead. LEAD!?? There's no lead listed in the ingredients, of course, so I did some research and couldn't find out why soy sauce would contain lead - maybe the fermenting/brewing process leaches trace amounts of lead from the pots or vessels that they use? I know many different metals have some lead content, so that's my best - but not proven - guess. I have used this soy sauce and haven't noticed any ill side effects and haven't died yet. I'm just trusting our U.S. import rules and inspectors. Plus, because it's quite strong and you use small amounts, maybe that makes it okay to consume? That being said, the smell is weird and kind of funky, but it does up the flavor and appearance of many Asian dishes. This is also quite a big bottle that will last quite a long time. If I do need another bottle later, I will be trying the Kum Lee brand, as that one also got good reviews and recommendations - and apparently has no lead warning.

Good for cooking and testing good too