소다!
11 Nov
One of the most pleasurable ways to explore any culture, most can agree, is through its cuisine and by extension the kind of products that it produces. Every country has something that is unique to that place and can tell you something about the culture you are in. Korea has many different items in this category, and trying them out can really leave you feeling surprised about the things you thought you would like as well as the things you expected to hate.
Now you may have heard that Japan has the bizarre soda market cornered, but Korea has a few, very respectable offerings as well so let’s have a sip:
Pine Bud Drink/솔의눈(Soluinun)
Me: This sickly sweet drink tastes exactly as I imagined it, like drinking Pine-Sol. I actually started to feel a bit sick while I was drinking it. Like, I was harming myself because I was actually drinking some kind of floor cleaner. I have been around a pine tree or two in my time on this earth, and I don’t remember them ever being as intoxicating as this.
OhChincha:This drink evoked memories of a sugary forest. Like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but without Johnny Depp. It was intensely sweet but it still managed to taste and smell like I was licking a cardboard pine air freshener.
Rice Drink/비락식혜(Sikhye Birak)
Me: Rice is a staple of the East Asian diet and if you eat something everyday it can’t be long before you start trying to figure different – and possibly faster -ways to consume it. Then along comes “rice drink”. The stout, little can has actual grains of rice in it, and kind of smells like “Pops” cereal which actually comes from corn. Of all the drinks, I think this one may have been the least offensive.
OhChincha:The rice drink smelled and tasted so bad. It was an opaque white colour and it tasted like watered down/ vomited up rice pudding. Funnily enough, it made me want to puke. Yum!
Barley Drink/하늘보리 (Hanuel Barley or Barley Sky)
Me: For me this drink had a sort of lemon taste and was super sweet. It was very fizzy, but altogether not too terrible.
OhChincha: This tasted like drinking cereal, water and sugar blended together, topped with soda. I tried to imagine I was drinking a cereal cocktail but then I imagined what Soju would bring to the mix and that made it ten times worse.
Milkis/밀키스
Me: Before even tasting what looks like watery milk with some kind of frothy component, you can smell the sugar almost burning your nostrils. The taste is not as bad as the smell. It’s more of an airy sugar and reminds me of fruit candy.
OhChincha: There are many words which freak me out. Moist for example. Milkis sounds even worse than moist, if that’s indeed possible, and it tastes even worse than licking a wet, fizzy armpit. Probably.
One more……
Kimchi Drink/김치
Me: I myself have never drank this particular beverage, but only because I couldn’t find it. Now, I’m not even gonna get into the brand name “Coolpis” because that’s just too easy so let’s look at the drink itself. Of the Koreans I asked about this drink none of them knew what I was talking about and didn’t seem like they found the idea too appetizing. It’s basically what is left over in the kimchi pot after all the cabbage has been taken out. They package it in a carton and – voila, kimchi on the go! Ya know, for those super busy Samsung executives! 
By the end of the taste test I felt like I was becoming somewhat of a connoisseur on the many different flavors that exist in the Korean soda market and coming up with phrases like “airy sugar” to try and describe what I was tasting. I’m not sure if I’ll be having any of these again anytime soon but I encourage everyone to take their own taste test. If you dare!
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Yay! The drinks really were disgusting. That kimchi one looks vile.
Oh there goes your psuedo-anonymity lol
I sometimes miss Korea…but I´m so glad about my German water: WITH GAS
haha M!
I think I’d like that rice drink, actually. Am I the only person who likes all the various grain milks and gelatin drinks out East? Leaving some whole rice grains in it just seems like the next logical step.
Hey Jason I know what you are talking about. I lived off bubble tea for a while and those raspberry lemonades with the seeds are delicious. This is not like those…..at all. lol
I always enjoy reading what you write because you do so great. IT fun to read and your senses come alive by your description. Keep on writng!!
Why thank you!
I’d try them all but the one that looks most interesting to me is the Pine Bud drink. Maybe I’ll have my chance this spring.