Nongshim Made a Samgyetang Ramyun — and Koreans Can Only Buy It From Japan
Nongshim's samgyetang cup noodle launched Japan-only in June 2026. Korean limited drops sold out in 10 minutes and resellers charge up to 10x. Here's the story, the specs, and how it tastes.
TL;DR — Nongshim's samgyetang-flavoured cup noodle launched in Japan on June 2, 2026 and has never had a full release in Korea — so Koreans are paying four to ten times retail to buy back a Korean dish, made by a Korean company, that they cannot get at home.
Imagine an Italian company inventing a carbonara instant noodle, selling it only in Seoul, and leaving Italians to buy it back from resellers at four times the price. That is roughly where Korea is right now with a cup of chicken soup.
What actually happened
On June 2, 2026, Nongshim launched 삼계탕사발면 (samgyetang sabal-myeon) in Japan — a nationwide rollout through Seven-Eleven Japan, priced at ¥188 before tax (¥203.04 including tax). It was one of three new bowl noodles alongside budae-jjigae and gomtang flavours.
It has still not had a proper launch in Korea.
That gap is the entire story. Samgyetang is about as Korean as food gets: a whole young chicken stuffed with glutinous rice, garlic, jujube and Korean ginseng, simmered until the broth turns milky. Koreans eat it on the three boknal — the hottest days of summer, which in 2026 fell on July 15, July 25 and August 14 — on the logic that you fight heat with heat. A Korean company turned that dish into a convenience-store cup noodle and put it on Japanese shelves.
Korean travellers found it almost immediately. By June 17, Kyunghyang was reporting the cups reselling inside Korea at more than four times the Japanese price. Korean media started calling it a 역출시 — a "reverse launch."
The scramble at home
| Date (2026) | What happened |
|---|---|
| Jun 2 | Japan launch, 7-Eleven nationwide, ¥203 incl. tax |
| Jun 17 | Korean media report 4x resale prices |
| Jul 23 | Nongshim confirms it has filed the product with Korea's food registry |
| Aug 6 | Coupang + Nongshim Mall pre-orders open — sold out in one day |
| Aug 12 | Nongshim Mall's 1,000-set limited drop — sold out in 10 minutes |
| Aug 14 | 말복, the last dog day of summer |
Resale listings reported by Korean media ran ₩7,000–8,000 per cup, with Wikitree citing outliers at ₩13,000–20,000 including shipping — against a Japanese shelf price of roughly ₩1,800.
Both Korean drops ran through Nongshim Mall, the company's own store, and Coupang. Neither has restocked.
If you are outside Korea, the irony is that Japan is the easy market. The cups sit on Seven-Eleven shelves nationwide, and Nongshim Japan also sells direct through its official Amazon.co.jp store and its Qoo10 Japan shop — both linked from the company's own product announcement. Stock and shipping vary, and neither store ships everywhere.
Nongshim's position, given to Newsis on August 12, was carefully non-committal: the product is popular in Japan, so it did a limited Korean release, and "정식 출시에 대해서는 아직 결정된 것 없다" — nothing has been decided about a formal launch.
What is actually in the cup
| Samgyetang cup | Yukgaejang cup (1982) | Shin Ramyun cup | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weight | 85 g (70 g noodles) | 86 g | 65 g |
| Calories | 365 kcal | 375 kcal | 300 kcal |
| Spice level | 0 of 5 | — | hot |
| Broth | chicken + ginseng | spicy beef | spicy beef |
The zero on that spice scale is deliberate. This is a Korean noodle built to travel — Nongshim's noodle developer said the point was to introduce the soups Koreans actually eat daily, not another chilli product.
Development took about 18 months and more than 30 prototypes.
What the people who made it said
"삼계탕집마다 국물이 맑은 곳도 있고 걸쭉한 곳도 있어 어느 한 가지 맛으로 정의하기 어려웠다." ("Some samgyetang restaurants have a clear broth, some a thick one — it was hard to define it as any one taste.") — 박세빈, assistant manager, Soup Development Team 3, Nongshim, to Maeil Business Newspaper
He visited more than ten samgyetang restaurants, and on the ginseng — the ingredient most likely to alienate a Japanese buyer — the team "함량을 0.1% 단위로 조정하며" adjusted the content in 0.1% increments across hundreds of tastings.
His colleague 박동윤 of the Noodle Development Team offered the detail that sells the product better than any marketing line: factory staff tell him that on days they run samgyetang sabal-myeon, the ginseng smell fills the entire plant.
Does it hold up?
Reviews are good but not worshipful. Segye Ilbo's August 20 taste test called it hearty, while noting the broth arrives clear, not the milky white of the restaurant version — and that adding shredded chicken breast and nurungji popcorn made it noticeably richer. Insight praised a deep chicken-broth flavour and noodles thicker and chewier than a standard Nongshim bowl.
The main criticism from Japanese reviewers is balance: the chicken stays mild while the ginseng can push forward hard. Several also note it eats like a light meal that wants a rice ball alongside.
The loudest complaint in Korea, though, has nothing to do with flavour. It is the sentence that keeps appearing in comment sections: a Korean company made Korean food, and Koreans cannot buy it in Korea.
Worth knowing
The Sabal-myeon format Japan received as a novelty in 2026 launched in Korea in November 1982. Japan got a forty-four-year-old Korean product line as something new — and Korea got it back as an import.
FAQ
Can you buy Nongshim samgyetang ramyun in Korea?
Not through a normal retail launch. It went on sale in Japan on June 2, 2026, and Korea has only had limited drops — Coupang and Nongshim Mall pre-orders on August 6 that sold out in a day, and a 1,000-set Nongshim Mall release on August 12 that sold out in 10 minutes. As of late August 2026 Nongshim says no formal domestic launch has been decided.
How much does it cost?
In Japan it is ¥188 before tax (¥203.04 including tax) at Seven-Eleven. Korean pre-orders ran about ₩6,980 for a six-pack. Resellers have charged ₩7,000–8,000 per cup, with reported outliers of ₩13,000–20,000 including shipping.
Is it spicy?
No. Nongshim rates it 0 on its own 0–5 spice scale — the same as its gomtang cup. It is a chicken-and-ginseng broth, not a chilli noodle. It contains 365 kcal in an 85 g serving.
What is samgyetang?
A Korean restorative soup: a whole young chicken stuffed with glutinous rice, garlic, jujube and Korean ginseng, simmered until the broth turns milky. Koreans traditionally eat it on the three hottest days of summer, called boknal, on the principle of fighting heat with heat.
Sources
- Nongshim Japan — product press release (June 1, 2026)
- 매일경제 — interview with the development team (June 23, 2026)
- 경향신문 — resale at 4x the Japanese price (June 17, 2026)
- 뉴시스 — 1,000 sets sold out in 10 minutes (August 12, 2026)
- 세계일보 — taste test (August 20, 2026)
Image: “KOCIS Korea Samgyetang KoreanFood (7594461604)” by Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Shown: samgyetang, the restaurant dish the cup noodle is based on. No free-licensed photo of the product itself exists.
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