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Salt
Production in Japan |
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The Japanese archipelago is handicapped
by the absence of rock- salt or other viable salt
sources. At the same time, the maritime nation is
surrounded by potentially rich salt supplies in
the form of sea water. Unfortunately, Japan's moist,
temperate climate offers few possibilities for producing
sea-salt by natural solar evaporation. As a result,
salt makers from primitive times on have been obliged
to employ a complex method consisting of two distinct
stages. In the first of these, the
saline content of ordinary sea water is artificially
increased to produce a highly saturated brine solution.
This lessens the amount of fuel consumed in the
second stage of manufacture, in which the
liquid concentrate is reduced (usually by boiling)
to the form of edible salt crystals.
This unusual dual-phase technique has undergone
many gradual changes leading in the direction of
increased productivity. Significant advances in
salt technology were made during the early Edo period,
which marked a new era of industrial growth throughout
the nation's major salt-manufacturing areas.
The post-war years have been characterised by even
more radical improvements.
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