Two hours from the neon of Tokyo, Liz Boulter meets a family with a back-to-nature outlook who run an inn on a farm that pays its dues to Japan's ancient traditions
Yosuke removed the gauze from the giant bucket to reveal a seething brown mass. "This is our own shoyu," he said. "Soya beans, wheat, salt, water and koji bacteria sit there for four months, then it's pressed and fermented again. We make over 50 litres every year."
To one used to soy sauce in neat little bottles, the bubbling goo looked far from appetising, but doing things the neat, convenient way is not what Brown's Field farm and its latest addition, an inn called Jiji's is about.
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