To provide a novel type vinegar or acidulated food paste mainly having excellent flavor and refreshing sourness, used as a food material such as a seasoning material or beverage material, and produced by using fruits and/or vegetables, and to provide a method for producing the vinegar or acidulated food paste.

The novel type vinegar or acidulated food paste has no unpleasant smell such as diacetyl smell, has mellowness, mild and good taste, and also refreshing sourness, and is obtained by using lactobacillus fermentable with fruit juice and/or vegetable juice and also having formability of lactic acid and acetic acid to ferment the fruit juice and/or vegetable juice. The method for producing the novel type vinegar or acidulated food paste having food flavor and refreshing sourness comprises the following process: varying aeration-agitation conditions for a fermented liquid so as to change the dissolved oxygen in the fermented liquid, and adjusting the ratio of acetic acid/lactic acid in the fermented product to be within a specified range.