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Fermentation Atlas

Sauces and condiments from Indonesia

Tauco (Indonesian fermented soybean paste)tauco

Boiled soybeans are left on bamboo trays for a few days until mould covers them, then soaked in brine for one to three months. In Cianjur the brined beans are also sun-dried, and most tauco is finally cooked with palm sugar and seasonings into a salty or sweet bean paste. Made in 5 steps over 27 days – 3.5 months. The longest step, ferment in brine, takes 25 days – 3.3 months (Seveline S 2025). Salt is 9.5–20 % (Seveline S 2025). Moulds growing on the beans, spontaneous in Cianjur and Pekalongan, from tempeh starter in Singkawang and Yeasts do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step25 days – 3.3 monthsReported[seveline2025]Ferment in brine
Salt9.5–20 %Reported[seveline2025]Ferment in brine
Fully documentedSauces and condiments27 days – 3.5 monthsMore sauces and condimentsMore from Indonesia

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceArtisan practice from a 2024 survey of makers in Cianjur, Pekalongan and Singkawang. There is no fixed batch; the brine strengths are each region's practice, not a tested recipe.
Soybeans · Yellow or black soybeans, soaked and boiled[seveline2025][sic-miso]
9.5–20 % brineSalt · Each maker uses a different brine; 10 % in Cianjur, 9.5 % (also given as 20 % w/v) in Pekalongan, 13.8 % in Singkawang[seveline2025]
1.2 %Commercial tempeh starter (Singkawang only) · Cianjur and Pekalongan rely on moulds already in the trays and air[seveline2025]
Rice flour (Pekalongan) · Mixed with the boiled beans and shaped into hand-sized balls[seveline2025]
Water, brown sugar and seasonings · For the final cooking; soft sweet tauco holds about 25 % palm sugar[seveline2025][sic-miso]
Starterspontaneous mould (Cianjur, Pekalongan) or commercial tempeh starter (Singkawang)

Total time across the recorded steps: 27 days – 3.5 months

Start
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What changes: Soaked soybeans are boiled until soft

Step 1 of 5
Soak and boil the soybeans
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Moulds
Yeasts

Output: soft boiled soybeans; in Pekalongan mixed with rice flour and rolled into balls.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

Tauco is a moulded-bean paste like miso and Chinese bean pastes, but its mould comes from the air or from tempeh starter, not a koji culture. Cianjur tauco is sun-dried after brining and is usually cooked with sugar before sale.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Soft sweet tauco (tauco Cianjur)The most popular type; about 25 % palm sugar by weight.
  • Salty liquid taucoThin and salty, sometimes called black bean sauce.
  • Firm dried tauco (tauco kering)Sold as sun-dried cakes; a smoked dried form also exists.
  • Pekalongan taucoBeans mixed with rice flour and moulded as balls; brined 30 days and packed uncooked in pandan-leaf wrapping.
  • Singkawang taucoMoulded with commercial tempeh starter; brined 25 days in the dark, giving a wetter, more liquid paste.

Safety

The brine ranges from about 9.5 % to 20 % salt and most tauco is cooked before sale. The mould stage relies on wild or tempeh moulds, and soy ferments in Southeast Asia are prone to mycotoxin contamination.

Hazards the sources name: Mycotoxin-producing moulds (soy ferments in Southeast Asia are prone to ochratoxin, citrinin and aflatoxin).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The Dutch chemist Prinsen Geerligs first described tauco in 1895 and 1896, reporting that the soybeans were inoculated with hibiscus leaves (waroe). The name comes from the Hokkien word for soybean paste, and production centred in Cianjur, between Bogor and Bandung.

  1. [seveline2025] Seveline S., Dewanti-Hariyadi R., Nuraida L., Kusuma W.A. 2025, Tauco, fermented Indonesian soybean, processing and the nutritional value, BIO Web of Conferences 169:02002 (ISoFST 2024), doi:10.1051/bioconf/202516902002paper
  2. [sic-miso] Shurtleff W., Aoyagi A., History of Miso and Soybean Jiang, Soyinfo Center (online chapter, sections on Indonesian tauco)book
  3. [owolabi2022] Owolabi I.O., Kolawole O., Jantarabut P., Elliott C.T., Petchkongkaew A. 2022, The importance and mitigation of mycotoxins and plant toxins in Southeast Asian fermented foods, npj Science of Food (abstract)paper
  4. [wp] Wikipedia, Tauco (outline only)wiki