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Frequently Asked Questions

About Kimchi

Kimchi is a vegetable condiment. It will compliment any main dish you have by providing that crunchy, acidic, spicy edge to your meal. Tabasco, Sriracha, dill pickles… now make room for Kimchi.

Kimchi is a great cooking ingredient. Kimchi fried rice, Kimchi stew, and Kimchi pizza are just a few ideas. View more ideas and complete recipes in our Recipes section.

Kimchi is a high-fiber and low-fat food. It will help you lose weight and helps food move smoothly through the intestines with substantial amounts of fiber, preventing intestine-related diseases.

It stays fresh longer, develops new flavor, and creates additional nutrition values.

Kimchi contains “healthy bacteria” called lactobacilli, that help food digest better and enhance the immune system function. It is far better than probiotic supplements which don’t contain active bacteria. Do you want to know more about probiotic food vs probiotic supplements? Learn more here.

Yes. It is fermented without any heat processing (pasteurization), and it retains Vitamins A, B, and C plus other valuable nutrients that are usually destroyed by the cooking process.

Kimchi is packed with cancer preventing ingredients. Garlic, onions, scallions, cabbage, and radish. Do a Google search on cancer fighting foods or anti-cancer diet and you’ll find our Kimchi’s ingredients.

Kimchi never goes bad, it just gets old. In Korea, 2-3 year old Kimchi is highly valued and eaten as it is or used as an ingredient in the creation of other dishes. Some restaurants in Korea ripen Kimchi for many years on purpose and brag about how old their Kimchi is. However, most Kimchi you find in grocery stores has a 6-month expiration date from the manufacturing date.

Kimchi is a naturally fermented raw food, not canned or pasteurized. Keep an open jar refrigerated and enjoy it as often as you would like to.

It doesn’t go bad but it ferments faster and can create gas and bubbles inside the pouch.

Because Kimchi is raw and live, healthy bacteria, Lactobacillus, is always active even as you are eating it. Kimchi ferments all the time.

It is lactic-acid from natural fermentation. The biological processes carried out by Lactobacillus and other microorganisms in the kimchi result in the formation of lactic acid. As the amount of lactic acid increases, the pH of the kimchi decreases. In other words, the kimchi becomes acidic due to the increasing amounts of lactic acid.

That is the beauty of Kimchi. Our Kimchi is raw and naturally fermented, so the healthy bacteria, lactobacillus, are always live and active. The bubbles or fizziness occurring when opening is from those bacteria actively working and some people call it “Veggie Soda.” There are other fermented products that have the same bubbling fizzy effect such as Champagne, Sauerkraut, and Kombucha.

Yes, but only during the winter time. From the 10th moon of the year, people prepare large quantities of kimchi, to provide nutrition throughout winter and under the ground provides perfect to store Kimchi until early spring next year. Nowadays, not many Koreans burry Kimchi under the ground for a few reasons. It’s easy to find vegetables or buy Kimchi during the wintertime and real estate is very expensive, so not many people have a back yard to bury Kimchi.

About Gochu Jang

Gochu jang is a fermented hot pepper paste that has a history of over 1,000 years in Korea. It’s a savory, spicy and pungent fermented Korean condiment made from malt, red chili, sweet rice, sea salt, etc.

There are so many things you can do with Gochu Jang!
Flavor any soup, stew, hot pot, etc.
Make your signature marinade or dipping sauce for chips, BBQ and more.
Make a dressing for salad, noodles, fried chicken.
Add a bit of Gochu jang to your stir-fry.
Rub your vegetables or meat with Gochu jang before roasting them in the oven!

We make Gochu Jang from start to end in our San Francisco facility because that’s the only way we can control ingredients and the way of making it. We don’t use wheat, fructose corn syrup, MSG, or any preservatives. We use old school (good & real) ingredients such as sweet rice flour, rice syrup, sea salt, etc. We make Gochu jang the way Korean grandmothers make it, starting with steeping malt in the water. Our Gochu jang is made by specially trained people (not machines) using a pot, wooden paddle, hemp bag, and a thermometer.

We recommend storing Gochu jang in a dark/cool area or preferably refrigerated all the time.

We have several very nice recipes you can try in our Recipes section. Please check back often as we keep posting new recipes.

Our Gochu jang is naturally fermented, so please keep it refrigerated at all times, even before opening.

As Gochu jang ferments over time, its color may change from bright/light red to deep/dark red. Sometimes the top surface is darker because the top layer has a direct contact with air. In either case, it’s totally fine to enjoy your Gochu jang.

At the point you buy our Gochu jang, it may have been 6 months fermented or 1 year fermented. The color tends to change over time. Also, we make our Gochu jang by hands so the color may be slightly different from batch to batch.

It’s a bit like wine. The taste becomes deeper, more complex, and slightly sweeter. The older it gets, the better it tastes!

Fatima Azzahra 10:00 AM