When tasting a product that’s billed as superior to another, sometimes you end up going back and forth and back and forth, concentrating with all your might to discern whether truly significant differences do exist.

Other times, all it takes is one taste to know that one completely outshines the other.

Such was the case when I tried a sample of LivCookEat Soy Sauce against my usual Kikkoman Less Sodium Soy Sauce.

Granted, I did not do my tasting blind. However, when I had my husband try the soy sauces, I didn’t tell him which was which. Even so, he immediately guessed which one was the LivCookEat Soy Sauce because it tasted far smoother.

What sets it apart?

It’s made with non-GMO black — not yellow — soybeans, which impart a sweeter, nuttier flavor and boast a higher level of antioxidants.

Produced in Taiwan, this artisan, small-batch soy sauce is made by the Bay Area’s Olivia Wu. Full disclosure: She is a longtime friend. She’s also a former food writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, and trained chef who went on to become an executive chef at Google for years before retiring to teach culinary classes out of her home.

At that tech giant’s Mountain View headquarters, she met Eddie Lo, then a project manager at Google who had a passion for cooking, having been raised by parents who ran their own Chinese restaurants in Wisconsin. Lo eventually decided to leave behind his long career in tech to start Eating with Edmond, hands-on, dumpling-making classes that he teaches out of his San Francisco home. While still at Google, the two teamed up to start producing their soy sauces.

Two types are available: LivCookEat Finishing Soy, and LivCookEat Delicate Soy. Think of them as you would red wine and white wine, Lo says. He recommends using the Finishing Soy on heartier foods such as red meat or noodles, and saving the Delicate Soy for fish, vegetables, dressings, or even desserts.

The Finishing Soy is marginally darker in color, plus more robust tasting, and deeper in umami. The Delicate Soy is a little lighter in color with the merest hint of caramelized sweetness. Both are extremely smooth without any acrid note or harshness on the finish that so many other soy sauces have.

In fact, a person tasting the Finishing Soy for the first time at an event I attended was so taken with it that he declared that he just wanted to drink it. That’s how remarkable it is.

Aged for 180 days, the LivCook Eat soy sauces are made with only black soy beans, water, salt, and sugar. One tablespoon of the Delicate Soy has 660 milligrams of sodium, while the Finishing Soy has 610 millgrams of sodium.

In contrast, my bottle of Kikkoman Less Sodium (made from water, soybeans, wheat, salt, lactic acid and sodium benzoate (a preservative) has 590 milligrams of sodium per 1 tablespoon. Regular Kikkoman (made from water, soybeans, wheat, and salt) has a whopping 960 milligrams of sodium per 1 tablespoon.

At $18 per bottle, it’s probably more than you’d normally spend on soy sauce. On one hand, you don’t need to use as much because it’s so much more flavorful. But on the other hand, you might find yourself using more because it’s just so tasty on so many things.

Purchase the soy sauces on the LivCookEat site. Or in San Francisco at China Live, On Waverly, the Asian Art Museum gift shop, and Bi-Rite Market, as well as at Oceana Market in Pacifica, and Sigona’s Farmers Market in Palo Alto and Redwood City.

If you are in Chicago, you can also pick up the soy sauces at Maxwell’s Trading, the restaurant owned and operated by Erling Wu-Bower, a James Beard Award finalist for “Best Chef: Great Lakes,” who also just happens to be Wu’s son.

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