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Ramen and green tea are two of the best things to make if you’ve got a pot of hot water, and now you can have both at once.

After the amazingly thorough Cup Noodles/Final Fantasy XV cross-promotion, you’d think the creative minds at Nissin, maker of Japan’s most popular brand of instant ramen, would be taking a well-deserved break. You don’t get to the top of your field by resting on your laurels, though, and so Nissin has created something even more unexpected than a fantasy epic starring its flagship product.

Going on sale January 23 is Nissin’s first ever green tea ramen: the Matcha Seafood Flavor Cup Noodle. While there’s been a huge boom in green tea desserts in Japan over the last few years, it’s still a rare (though not entirely unheard of) ramen ingredient, and Nissin is hoping to pique the interest of both locals and inbound foreign tourists looking for a unique and extremely Japanese eating experience.

Matcha is present in both the noodles and broth of the new product, and in the cup you’ll also find squid, cabbage, green onions, egg, and carrot (the last of which is also an unorthodox ramen topping). The package is special too, emblazoned with a matcha-green Mt. Fuji, geisha, EDM sumo wrestler, and the Doctor Yellow Shinkansen test train.

Also being released by Nissin on January 23 are a plum kelp tea flavor for its popular U.F.O. brand of instant yakisoba noodles and a sukiyaki flavor for the company’s Donbei line of instant udon. Collectively, they’re known as the Japan Noodle Trio.

▼ Sukiyaki udon (left), matcha ramen (center), and plum kelp tea yakisoba (right)

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The three are identically priced at 180 yen (US$1.55), meaning that while some of the flavors might seem intimidating, the cost certainly isn’t. And besides, there’s no way they can be as bad as Nissin’s ramen ice cream.

Source: Entabe
Images: Nissin

Follow Casey on Twitter, where his lunch plans for January 23 are now all set.