Korean Life – Korea’s Love Affair with Melon

Recently I have come across more and more products made to taste or smell like Melon so I thought I would gather together a few of them to show you. There are a couple of beauty items but also food and drink. I thought it would be nice to see some of the things that you can get here in Korea. All the food and drinks are from convenience stores.

It’s something that is not so popular in New Zealand, you might find the odd thing but definitely not on the scale here in Korea. The taste is that of the honeydew melon, it’s the one that they use to make the liquor Midori. I really like this taste, both from the fruit itself and also in other things.

Not everything they make is good however, they made a version of the popular snack ‘Pepero’ (Pocky in Japan) which is a long thin biscuit dipped in chocolate. Nowadays they cover the biscuit stick with lots of different flavours and they come out with new ones each year. They introduced the new flavour of ‘Melon’ a couple of years ago and it was not very well received. I tried it and it was not very good. I think it must have been discontinued as I looked for some when I was planning this post but couldn’t find any in the half dozen stores that I visited.

So welcome to ‘Melon Mania’ in the photo above we have Melon Ice Block, Melon Wafer Biscuits, Melon Hand Cream, Melon Face Wash, two brands of Melon Flavored Milk, Melon Soda, and Melon Cake. These are all the Melon things that I could gather together in the past week or so. I’m sure there are others but this is what I found.

Melona (Melon Ice Block)  – This is a creamsicle type ice block from a company called Binggrae who also do the smaller milk that I mention below. Melona is one of their most famous and popular products. The popularity of it probably led to the milk being made, this company’s other bestselling product is a banana milk. By combining their two popular products the probably figured it couldn’t miss. The ice block is also available in other fruit flavours.

This ice block is quite nice, it has a good melon flavour and is not too sweet. It’s kind of a cross between an ice block and an ice cream. It’s not juice like western ice blocks but it is a very fruity flavour, I think it has milk in it because it is creamy, but it’s not really the heavy consistency of ice cream either. It’s nice and refreshing on a hot summer day.

 
Melon Wafers – I had seen these around but had not tried them before. This was a good excuse to give them a go. They were quite nice, mostly a sweet taste with a subtle taste of melon. The wafers are cut into little bite sized pieces so they are really good for snacks.

Melon Hand Cream (from A’Pieu) – I picked this up purely because of the novelty, although it would be even better if it was in a melon shaped container. A’Pieu also does a banana smelling one in the same type of tube but it just does not compare to the Tony Moly one in my eyes. If I have a choice between a normal tube and one shaped into something cute or novel then I’m going to go with the more interesting version.

It smells really fresh and actually a bit more like watermelon, it does just say ‘Sweet Melon’ on the tube, it does not specify what type of melon. It smells quite strong in the tube and when you first put it on, but after that the smell dissipates.

 
Melon Face Wash (from Beyond) – Why not, I had all the other Melon things so I thought I may as well grab this one too. I visited the Beyond store in Hongdae for my birthday last weekend. They have a lot of cute stuff and I saw this, they had a range of these facial washes that smell like tropical fruits.

The facial wash is quick thick and creamy. It has quite a subtle smell, especially compared with the hand cream. I also think it is more of a soap smell so it does smell like melon but it’s not over the top. I just tried it the once to check it out, I have so many cleansers open at the moment I need to finish some of them first before I try this properly. Will try to remember to do a proper review on it later.

 
Melon Flavored Milk – There were two of these that I saw in a local convenience store, so I grabbed them both to try.

The carton is from CU which is the homebrand of a chain of convenience stores of the same name, This one was almost white in color where as the other one was a bit more green. The flavour was immediate and almost smacks you in the face, very sweet and flavourful. I quite liked it and because it’s in a carton you can just have a bit and then put the rest away for another time.

The smaller funny shaped one is from Binggrae which I talked about above as the Melona Ice Block is made by the same company. It definitely tastes like melon, it’s quite sweet and although I didn’t mind it I’m not sure if I exactly liked it either. Not sure if either of milks are anything I would buy again but if I was given it I could drink it. This company is famous for their Banana milk which has been around for ages and is really good. They recently branched out and made some different flavours of this milk and melon was one of the new ones.

Sunkist Melon Soda – I like sweet stuff but this is even a bit too sickly sweet for me. It’s okay to try and I finished the can but I don’t think it’s something I would buy on a regular basis or even ever again unless it was for something specific. It might be nice mixed with something else to dilute it a bit.

While Sunkist is not a Korean brand I think that the Melon flavour is made specifically for the Korean Market. I’ve never seen it before and it’s only new here too.

Melon Sweet Cake – This is one of my favourite non-chocolate sweet snacks. I did not expect to like it but tried it on a whim.

It’s a soft melon flavoured sponge cake. The flavour is very subtle and it also has a thin layer of the same flavour melon cream filling in between the layers of sponge cake. It’s delicious and I always look for it at the convenience stores, only some of them sell it and it comes and goes very quickly so if I find it I always buy a few.