Soy sauce, soya sauce or Shoyu!

A debate has broken out here in the office on the merits of the various soy/soya/shoyu sauces. As someone who rarely uses it as a condiment for dressing food (other than in Asian salad dressings) I’m pretty neutral – once it’s in a sauce and cooked I can’t tell any difference. I have 3 brands in the kitchen – including Kikkoman. Here’s where the debate stemmed from.

Is Kikkoman really the prince of soy sauces? A tricky one – especially if you consider the varieties from different cultures (with ‘respek’  to Wikipedia)

Types

• 3.1 Chinese soy sauce
• 3.2 Indonesian soy sauce
• 3.3 Malaysian soy sauce
• 3.4 Japanese soy sauce
• 3.5 Korean soy sauce
• 3.6 Taiwanese soy sauce
• 3.7 Vietnamese soy sauce
• 3.8 Filipino toyo
• 3.9 Hawaiian shoyu

I’d be very interested to hear anyone’s thoughts – Kikkoman makes claim to tbe the premium brand – can this be upheld or is it marketing hype?