
Wholesome meals don’t get any more portable than that.
In recent years, more and more canned soups can be found in Japan’s thousands of vending machines, especially as the temperatures gradually cool down into the end of the year.
Aside from the long-selling corn potage in a can, new contenders have come in the form of simple fish stocks to more complex shrimp bisque or demiglace soups.
It’s an ongoing process to find the best balance of warming nourishment and quick-gulp portability, and the newest contender is Korea’s samgye-tang.

This is a hot soup made with a whole young chicken stuffed with ginseng, garlic, rice, and other ingredients as it soaks in a broth. It is highly regarded for its nutritional value, particularly because of its use of the highly potent ginseng herb.
But in our busy workaday lives it can be hard to find the time to simmer a whole chicken, which is why beverage producer DyDo Drinco is bringing it to us in a can starting late September!
Since a single can is only 185 milliliters (6 ounces), we probably shouldn’t expect a whole chicken inside or even chunks, since it’s intended as a “ready to drink” soup that won’t make you choke. It is, however, gently seasoned with ginger and chock full of the nutrition you’d expect from samgye-tang, all at only 26 calories.
Because of this, it’s being called “Samgye-tang Style Soup” instead of actual samgye-tang. To give it a bit of texture, Japanese supplement maker FANCL is providing its popular germinated brown rice to the mix. This rice is considered healthier that regular white rice with more nutrients such as GABA and Vitamin E, while also giving the soup a mellow sweetness.
▼ Commercial for FANCL Germinated Brown Rice, which of course has its own mascot.
Cans of Samgye-tang Style Soup will start appearing in DyDo vending machines from 20 September for 115 yen (US$1.05) each. Those who are confident this stuff will be awesome and just want to dive into buying a case right away can do so at the FANCL website starting 16 September where a 30-pack will sell for 3,720 yen ($33.84).
This latest venture into Korean cuisine is certainly promising for soups in a can, and hopefully we can see a nice canned kimchi ramen pop up in machines someday too. In the meantime, we’ll just have to settle for canned curries to get our spicy drink fix on the go.
Source: DyDo via Entabe
Images: DyDo
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