Village Vanguard is a popular chain of novelty stores across Japan. There you can find all sorts of things from bird poop stickers to Resident Evil curry to wasabi toothpaste. As such, it’s easy to get desensitized to their range of items and lose the ability to be surprised with what they come out with next.

Or so we thought, until word came of a new product that will be sold there around the end of May. Purin Senyo Shoyu is a specially crafted soy sauce meant to be drizzled over a jiggly glob of pudding. You might wonder what pudding and soy sauce taste like together. The answer is surprisingly simple: it tastes like sea urchin.

First, we should make the distinction between pudding as you may know it and the Japanese purin, which is more like a crème caramel or flan depending on where you hail from. It’s all in the same boat in that it’s just creamy sweet stuff at the core, but it’s unclear whether Purin Senyo Shoyu will yield success in a Snack Pack just as smoothly.

This specialty soy sauce comes from YK Stores which partnered up with Goto Shoyu, a soy sauce brewery established back in 1913. They have lent their hundred-plus years of experience to produce exactly the desired taste…of sea urchin.

Of course, this just leaves the question of why.

For some time there has been an urban legend which states that adding soy sauce to purin makes it taste exactly like sea urchin. Given that sea urchin is creamy and slightly sweet with an earthy flavor, it’s not far-fetched to assume that purin with the added saltiness and savoriness of soy sauce could match the taste. Many a YouTuber has tried to verify this claim.

However, with the vast variety of soy sauces and sea urchin the permutations are endless, making it difficult to find that perfect combination that the legend speaks of. As a result the verdict is rather mixed among Japanese people. So, Goto put its specialists to work at developing the perfect soy sauce to guarantee the flavor of sea urchin is created when added to purin. The fruits of this labor have been brewed into every 80-milliliter (3-ounce) bottle of Purin Senyo Shoyu being sold for 480 yen (US$4).

So, if you’re looking for a truly unique taste experience, you’d do well to try some sea urchin flavored pudding with soy sauce. To get some, either head down to a Village Vanguard in a few weeks or preorder them online now from the link below.

Source: Village Vanguard (Japanese)
Videos: YouTube – Yoshida Kazunao, Nanachaneru
Original article by Mr. Sato
[ Read in Japanese ]