Hello Asean Hive Community
I posted something about Korean Food last week, it was a korean Instant noodle. Please allow me to talk more about Korean food, but this time it is a drink.. Well a Jelly Drink precisely.
Vividly I recall that a few years ago, during Covid-19 lockdown, there was a hyped Korean Drink called as Dolphin Jelly Drink. Almost all Jelly Drink here were and still are using Nata De Coco as their jelly based, yes a coconut drink, so when a jelly drink based on non Coconut came in, people were so hyped.
I have not been a big fan of Jelly Drink, even though I seldom drink them, maybe once in a month. So that time when people got hyped, I was not into the product deeply, but I knew and I drank them once. Just to know the taste.
One of the famous one back then was this, The Captain Dolphin
Last month somehow I stumbled upon them in one of the elite supermarket in central Jakarta. I was looking for Nato, a Japenese fermented soy food and when I was in queue for paying my goods at the cashier, I saw them, those Captain Dolphin.
They were very famous years ago however nowadays they have become some "history". You could not get them in groceries stores anymore, the hyped was over and stores got rid them from the shelves.
So it's quite nostalgic for me, and I decided to buy my favorite one.
I like the Mango one, but please take a note here that this is my personal preference. The other taste, Lychee, Grape and Peach are not bad, many might prefer them over this mango.
They used Hangul in their package however they were not a native or purely Korean based. They came from Malaysia and they claimed they had a good share of sales in Japan and Korea. I had googled it before and It seemed to be true, that despite being non Korean manufacturer, they did get good sales there.
Anyway back to the product. the taste was still the same, so I was happy at least I bought it again...
Now if they are good, why they have gone from the stores shelves... The answer is simple, the Hype has gone over, no more hype leads to bad sales.
For me, personally I avoid drinking jelly drink too much. I take them as processed food so I have to limit it. I am not young anymore so eating or drinking processed food in long term is dangerous for me.
But for the community, I mean Indonesian people, we love Nata De Coco more and there are plenty of coconut here. Most of our food have coconut milk or coconut flavor, so we need something driven by strong hype to replace the coconut based food.
Price is a major consideration too, as Nata De Coco drinks that produced here locally, have a lot cheaper price. I share you the picture above, the local coconut jelly drink could go less than a third of Captain Dolphin price. So people here won't pay something that cost them 4 times higher, if the hype doesn't drive them to make the purchase.
However I don't think this Korean Drink will definitely extinct here for real. There are high sugar content problem in Nata De Coco product, especially the jelly drink. They are heavily infused with sugar, so if we talk about being healthier, Konjac based jelly definitely is better than coconut one. So there will always be people, in a niche segment, that prefer Korean Konjac Jelly drink over Local Nata De Coco Jelly drink.
I do not think this Korean style Konjac Jelly Drink could make a come back and hit big sales here organically, except, let say maybe they send their KPOP idols to drive the hype, maybe the hype could be back again. Who knows?
Well that's my food story today, have you tried this Korean Konjac Jelly?
Thank you for coming and reading my post. I live in Jakarta, Capital City of Indonesia. I used to live by making money online, that's why I like being here, on HIVE, and in #PIMP - (Paper In My Pocket) community. Feel Free to leave any comment below
