The Quest for the Perfect Sesame Oil

Not all sesame oil is made the same.

The sesame seeds may look similar, and the ingredient list may even say 100% sesame oil, but how those seeds are roasted, ground, and processed can dramatically change what ends up in the bottle.

Our family has been making sesame oil for three generations. We still use the traditional stone mill method because we believe the process creates something you can smell and taste: deeply aromatic, nutty sesame oil without the harsh, burnt notes that can come from more aggressive processing.

So, what should you actually look for in a great sesame oil?

Start With the Aroma

Open the bottle.

Great toasted sesame oil should immediately smell like toasted sesame seeds: warm, rich, and intensely nutty. The aroma should be inviting rather than burnt, bitter, or overwhelmingly pungent.

For us, aroma is one of the most important characteristics of sesame oil. After all, most people aren’t using sesame oil because they need another source of fat. They’re using it because a small amount can completely change the aroma of a dish.

Look at the Color

Toasted sesame oil naturally develops a beautiful golden to reddish-brown color during roasting.

Darker isn’t necessarily better. Excessive roasting can push sesame seeds beyond toasted and toward burnt, creating bitterness and masking some of their natural aroma.

The goal is balance: enough roasting to develop that unmistakable toasted sesame character without overpowering the seed itself.

Taste It

Yes, straight from the spoon.

A good sesame oil should taste rich, roasted, and nutty, with a lingering sesame aroma. What you’re looking for is depth without an unpleasant burnt or bitter finish.

It’s one of the simplest ways to understand the difference between sesame oils. Taste a few side by side and you’ll realize very quickly that “100% sesame oil” doesn’t mean every bottle tastes the same.

How Sesame Oil Is Made Matters

There are several ways to extract oil from sesame seeds, but our family has continued using the traditional stone mill process.

The sesame seeds are carefully roasted and then slowly ground into a paste using a stone mill. Water is introduced to help the oil naturally separate from the sesame solids. The oil is then collected and allowed to settle.

It’s a slower process than modern high-speed extraction, but efficiency was never the only thing we were optimizing for.

We care about what comes out of the bottle.

Stone Mill vs. Mechanical Pressing

Mechanical presses use pressure to extract oil from roasted sesame seeds. They’re efficient and capable of producing sesame oil at much greater speed and scale.

Stone milling takes a different approach. Instead of simply pressing the seed for its oil, the sesame is first ground into a paste before the oil is separated.

That distinction matters to us because the process we’ve inherited was developed around flavor and aroma—not simply yield.

Our grandfather believed the method was worth preserving. Three generations later, so do we.

Three Generations of Sesame Oil

Our relationship with sesame oil began in Taiwan and eventually traveled with our grandfather back to Fuzhou, the city where he grew up.

Today, our sesame oils and sesame pastes are still produced in our own facility in Fuzhou using the stone mill tradition our family has practiced for generations.

Through Lian How and DOU, we’re carrying that same craft forward for a new generation of kitchens.

We haven’t preserved stone milling because it’s quaint or nostalgic. We’ve preserved it because, after decades of making sesame oil, we still believe it makes a better bottle.

And ultimately, that’s the test that matters most: open it, smell it, taste it.