Cup Noodle Sodas: Culinary innovation or beverage abomination?

Instant ramen becomes fizzy drinks, and we’ve tried them all so you don’t have to.  

Just the other day, Nissin, the creators of Cup Noodle, the world’s first-ever instant noodle, came out with their craziest 50th birthday announcement yet: they would be releasing Cup Noodle sodas.

That’s right, the esteemed makers of the instant Cup Noodle would be taking well-known flavours from four of their top varieties, and turning them into fizzy drinks for the first time ever.

▼ The new sodas are based on the following Cup Noodle flavours: Original Cup Noodle, Curry, Seafood, and Chilli Tomato

According to the press release, Nissin claims the new products will be beyond our wildest imaginations, saying: “Whether it’s delicious or not is up to you!”

Well, we were able to get our hands on a full set of the new sodas before they officially go on sale, and to decide whether they were delicious or not, we lined them up for a taste test, before ranking them in order from best to worst.

So let’s get to it and find out what these bizarre beverages are really like, starting with the best-tasting one in the lineup, which is…

▼ Chilli tomato

The Chilli Tomato variety was a very pleasant surprise. In hindsight, it shouldn’t have been such a surprise really, as tomatoes are commonly enjoyed in juice form already, and this soda tasted just like carbonated tomato juice. The aroma of tomatoes was pleasing, and there was a slight tingle on the taste buds from the chilli, making this a perfectly palatable, and dare we say it, even enjoyable, drink.

▼ Original Cup Noodle

In noodle form, this variety contains a salty soy sauce broth, so when we went to drink its corresponding soda, we braced ourselves for a weird, salty concoction. However, though the colour of the beverage looks like a soy sauce broth, it’s actually ginger ale, which makes it perfectly fine to drink. It’s said to contain a hint of salt, but we couldn’t sense it — all we could taste was ginger ale, and it wasn’t an especially delicious ginger ale, but we realised that could’ve been due to the salt component.

▼ Curry

In second-worst place we have the Curry Cup Noodle Soda. This one was probably least surprising in terms of what it tasted like, which was CURRY in bold, capital letters. The aroma of curry hit the nose before tasting, and then during tasting, the curry attacked the taste buds. It then overstayed its welcome, lingering for a long time in the aftertaste. The curry was so aromatic it made this one quite difficult to drink, despite the soda itself being made with a usually pleasant cola base.

And now, the award for the worst of the worst goes to…

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▼ The Seafood Cup Noodle Soda!

As soon as we poured this one into a glass, we knew it was going to be bad, but little did we know just how bad it was going to be.

The cream soda used in the drink did nothing to save it from the pungent seafood flavour and aroma — in fact, it may have made it worse. It was kind of like Calpis, but the worst Calpis ever created, like a fizzy clam chowder with a bite at the end. No matter how many times we tried it, it never got any better, and the worst thing about it was the aftertaste, which felt like it was going to live on in the mouth forever.

The milky, fizzy seafood flavour clung onto the taste buds and held them hostage for what seemed like an eternity. Looking at the back of the can, we found the probable culprit, listed in the ingredients as “prawn“. It was overwhelmingly intense in flavour and aroma, and we were still burping up the godforsaken flavour for hours afterwards.

Still, we ought to have known that seafood would never work as a fizzy drink, and Nissin did warn us that the flavours in the new series would be beyond our imaginations.

Even with such a bad-tasting soda, Nissin knows its fun-loving customers won’t be able to resist giving it a try, and to do that you’ll have to pre-order a set online at Nissin from 13-17 September, or from 17 September at the following online retail sites: Amazon; au PAY Market; Rakuten; Lohaco; Yodobashi.

If you prefer your Cup Noodle in more traditional form, but with a new twist on taste, you might want to try the new Cup Noodle Super Combined series, which combines some of our old favourites for a brand new flavour adventure. And it’s a lot easier on the palate than the sodas.

Related: Nissin Foods
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