Look out here comes Cup Noodle-flavored sodas

Japan’s Vice reporter Hanako Montgomery has gracefully put her taste buds on the line to test the new Cup Noodle-flavored sodas. Nissin, the makers of Cup Noodle is celebrating 50 years of keeping students’ food budgetary constraints afloat. Now imagine turning some of your favorite Cup Noodles into sodas. Roving reporter Hanako Montgomery braved for all of us to try these new soda flavors. The soda comes in four different flavors. Cup Noodle Soda, Cup Noodle Seafood Soda, Cup Noodle Curry Soda, and Cup Noodle Chili Tomato Soda. Personally, I always enjoyed drinking down the styrofoam cup of noodles juice at the end with the bottom bits of ingredients.

As the names suggest, each flavor reproduces the flavor of its corresponding Cup Noodle, only in carbonated drink form. The Cup Noodle Soda is said to be a ginger ale-style soda that contains the aroma of salty sauce and pepper, while the Cup Noodle Seafood Soda uses a cream soda-style base with a “hidden” hint of seafood. The Cup Noodle Curry Soda is a cola-style soda finished with curry spices, and the Cup Noodle Chili Tomato Soda is a tomato-style soda with a refreshing tingle that gently stimulates the taste buds. ( SoraNews24)

Hanako Montgomery’s overall consense was… Though by far not the most satisfactory line of drinks to have ever graced my lips, the entire experience was a pleasant jolt for my unsophisticated palate. I won’t be reaching for the drinks on late-night snacking trips, but cheers to wacky carbonated versions of food we love to thrill amateur food critics like myself. 

Regular Cup Noodle: As soon as I unscrewed the top, I was greeted by a strong whiff of Cup Noodle’s signature scent: the sodium-rich, oily chicken broth that buoys the spongy ramen. Rather impressed by their ability to pack such a strong aroma into a single tin can, I proceeded with my first mouthful of soda.  

Seafood Noodle: When the soda traveled down my esophagus, it was a deceivingly kind, innocent taste. But once my taste buds soaked up the drink, my face instinctively broke into a grimace. It tastes like a watery version of slightly expired clam chowder, nothing at all like a cream soda with “hints” of seafood, as the package advertised. Cream soda tends to be quite sweet but that was starkly missing and was instead replaced with the taste of a smelly ocean. I’d personally like to ask the individual who made this drink whether they even dared taste it. 

Curry Noodle: Like the original Cup Noodle flavor, the curry soda tasted more like a cola drink than a curry dish. The spicy earthiness characteristic of Japanese curry was largely absent and only briefly appeared at the end of each mouthful. But the drink was also distinctly not a cola—you can tell it was fused with something, though it’s not quite clear with what, unless you smell the drink while gulping. 

Chili Tomato Noodle: Unlike the other sodas, the tomato flavor was not accompanied by a strong smell. In terms of taste, it was only a slight improvement from the seafood soda. It echoed a classic marinara sauce but was diluted with one too many shakes of black pepper. None of the sweetness the drink purported it would have was there, and I was instead faced with a much spicier soda than expected. (Vice)