Why Does Coffee Taste Like Soy Sauce in This Drink?

A coffee shop in Shanghai launched a salmon sushi-flavored specialty drink priced at 80 yuan, claiming it simulates liquid sushi while containing no salmon. The founder shared the recipe: oat milk and wasabi paste stand in for rice, avocado cream milk cap for the fish, plus a separate soy sauce made from espresso.

The drink drew heated discussion online, with some exclaiming stay away and others checking in and saying it tasted good. The reason coffee tastes like soy sauce here is deliberate: the espresso has its oils removed and is mixed with wasabi paste and sugar, coming close to sushi soy sauce in look and flavor.

What would it taste like when the Japanese cuisine classic salmon sushi collides with coffee? A coffee shop in Shanghai recently launched a salmon sushi-flavored specialty drink priced at 80 yuan, claiming it can simulate the taste of liquid sushi, yet it actually contains no salmon at all. The founder publicly revealed the recipe: oat milk and wasabi paste simulate the rice, avocado cream milk cap simulates the fish, plus a separate "soy sauce" made from espresso. This specialty drink quickly sparked heated discussion online, with some exclaiming "stay away," while others checked in and said it tasted good. Beneath its bizarre appearance, is it dark cuisine or a creative delicacy?

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For people who eat Japanese food regularly, salmon sushi is all too familiar. This evergreen item on Japanese restaurant menus has won many fans with its unique taste, but when it suddenly appears on a coffee shop menu, many "coffee heads" can't help but ask: how did these two things end up together?

Not long ago, a coffee shop in Shanghai put a salmon sushi-flavored coffee specialty drink on its menu, priced at 80 yuan. Many people's first reaction upon hearing the name was to imagine salmon sashimi laid directly on top of the drink. But what the staff brought to the table was only a cup of the drink and a portion of "soy sauce" — no salmon as imagined, and no trace of coffee either.

According to the recipe publicly shared by the shop founder, although this drink is marketed under the banner of wasabi salmon sushi flavor, no salmon is used at all during production. He explained that the milky white drink on the left plays the role of "salmon sushi." The barista uses oat milk paired with wasabi paste to simulate rice, then uses a milk cap made from avocado and cream to simulate salmon meat, making the whole cup taste as if it were a liquid version of salmon sushi.

What customers assume is the essential "soy sauce" for Japanese food is actually an espresso with the oils removed, mixed with wasabi paste and sugar, close to sushi soy sauce in both appearance and taste. The owner explained that after receiving this specialty drink, customers can choose to taste it separately to experience the texture of liquid sushi and the unique flavor of coffee soy sauce, or mix the two together to get a milk coffee with a distinctive flavor.

From this perspective, this drink is indeed clearly different from the way the public usually imagines those attempts that directly drop raw fish into espresso. Still, netizens were not very convinced by this novel specialty drink. Some joked, "Add some beer too, offend Germany, Italy, and Japan all at once, and call the specialty drink the Anti-Fascist Alliance," while others exclaimed, "Don't come over!!!" "This isn't coffee, this is just a cup of... soup," "One sip and you might go to heaven," "I looked three times to confirm what kind of food this actually belongs to."

Many netizens said that even though the drink looks unremarkable, its flavor description makes people afraid to try it casually, for fear of accidentally "stepping on a landmine and losing money." Some also said bluntly that they would rather buy a cup of coffee and a portion of salmon sashimi and put together a cup of salmon coffee with real ingredients themselves.

However, there is never a shortage of consumers willing to take the risk. They made special trips to the shop to check in, watched the barista make it from start to finish, and took the cup that sounded a bit bizarre with great expectation and took a sip. Customers who tried it were pleasantly surprised to find that although there is no salmon among the ingredients, the taste is indeed somewhat similar.

These customers believe that although this specialty drink sounds unusual, like an innovative product very prone to failure, the actual taste is not that hard to accept, and many said bluntly that it tastes good. As one netizen put it, the flavor of coffee specialty drinks may seem bizarre, but if you don't try it yourself, how would you know whether this "salmon sushi specialty drink" is dark cuisine or a delicious dish?

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.