But is Sumiyaki really an example of such elevation, or just a means of applying that practiced gloss to a form of instant coffee that, if not quite the watery swill Americans were once accustomed to, remains inferior to that made from actual steeped beans? It’s hard for this outsider to tell, having never drank the stuff myself. Nestle produces a high-ish-end form of it, which involves a slightly different process from classic “instant”, and thus doesn’t want that moniker applied. Sumiyaki means “charcoal grill” in Japanese, describing the means by which the crystallized fragments are cooked, imbuing a further bit of artisanal branding to the entire thing, even if it is just a marketing scheme.
There is of course an actual high-end coffee culture in Japan, although I imagine beans were likely hard to source in the lean years after WWII, potentially leading to an interest in refining the instant stuff, which became popular worldwide during the convenience-focused mid-century era. Instant coffee (along with canned versions like Taiwan’s Mr. Brown) has remained popular in Asia since this time, for a variety of reasons. This has culminated with the recent viral status of the Korean Dalgona coffee concoction, the latest Gram-ready gimmick beverage to sweep the world.
A further mystery is why Chung Guang, a company based in Hainan, is offering Sumiyaki as one of its marquee flavors. There’s a few Chinese-label versions of the stuff available on AliBaba, but not many, which doesn’t quite indicate the type of presence that might mandate an accompanying candy. That said, the other, more distinctly Chinese varieties are also very good: Ginger has the type of unctuous bite necessary for any good adaptation of that flavor; the Durian is piquant but not cloying or too funky, and the coconut, befitting the tree’s primacy on that tropical island, is possibly the best of the bunch. In the future I hope to accidentally stumble upon more previously unknown foreign beverages via their condensed hard candy equivalents.