Our Story

My childhood was highlighted by summertimes spent in Lang Co, a small fishing village in Central Vietnam where my mother was born. My grandmother had a grocery store and a beautiful home surrounded by coconut trees that marked the boundary of our ancestor's property.

Every evening before sunset, I kept seeing the fishermen from the village walking into my grandmother's store, purchasing a bowl of fish sauce and drinking it before continuing down the central pathway of the village. Heading to the beach where their fishing boats were waiting to sail out to go fishing during the night.

One day, as a boy of 9 or 10 years old, I had the courage to ask the fishermen: “Why do you drink fish sauce every evening before going to sea?”

"That keeps me warm on the high sea at night, my son," they replied.

That explanation stayed with me and puzzled me all my life. I could not figure out why drinking fish sauce would help the fishermen to keep warm. Not until I began making fish sauce in California.

I read as much as I could to understand the basics of fish sauce making and fish sauce science. My childhood mystery unraveled as I connected the dots between the properties of fish sauce and the use of fish sauce by the fishermen to keep warm on the sea. I discovered it is the amino acid in the pure fish sauce that helped their body to keep warm.

While I am not trained as a scientist, I took my knowledge, family fish sauce recipe and invested time and passion into the R&D efforts to create unique fish sauce flavors that are currently patent pending with USPTO.

California Fish Sauce products carry the distinctive brand name trademarked as “Nectar of the Sea” and our product portfolio has achieved to promote four flavors:

1- Traditional Fish Sauce

2- Pineapple Fish Sauce

3- Honey Fish Sauce

4- Koji Fish Sauce, our award-winning formula.

To try our sauces, you can locate us at any one of our retail distribution locations or contact us directly to get on the ordering list.