Pingtung Sauce-Brewing Festival stages Taiwan-Japan-Korea fermentation showdown

Pingtung’s Sauce-Brewing Lifestyle Festival will bring together Hakka cuisine, traditional producers and East Asian fermentation culture on the 13th at Zhútián Dùnwù Station.

Held under the theme “Eat Hakka Style with Sauce,” the festival will build its program around a single jar of sauce. It will connect cooking demonstrations, artisan producers, a market and slow-travel experiences with fermentation traditions from Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.

The festival’s new centerpiece is a Taiwan-Japan-Korea fermentation showcase. Participants include Higuchi Onigiri Oraie, a Niigata specialist known for champion Koshihikari rice balls; Chef Liu, a Korean-descended chef from Hengchun’s Junqiao Korean Cuisine; and the local Hakka group Gengxin, Good Food, Good Things, Common Good Platform. Their cooking demonstrations will explore how sauces can meet different food cultures and produce new flavors.

Zhútián, formerly known as Dùnwù, once served as a distribution hub for rice and agricultural products in the Liudui Hakka area. The town later became home to several soy sauce breweries. Organizers chose the station, with its Japanese wooden architecture and railway setting, to make the festival accessible by train and connect it with nearby established soy sauce makers, independent ice-cream shops, local farmers and restaurants.

The Sauce-Brewing Slow-Living Market will also offer promotions. Visitors can pay NT$100 in cash to receive a “Food Time Amplifier” voucher valued at NT$200.