- Buldak is a spicy, chicken-flavored instant ramen made by Samyang food company.
- The ramen is so spicy that it sparked a viral food-eating challenge in the late 2010s.
- Samyang's CEO Kim Jung-soo told WSJ that perfecting the ramen's flavor took months of testing.
The Korean instant ramen known as Buldak, which translates literally to "fire chicken," has become well known not just for its simplicity and taste but for the nearly unbearable levels of spice the product comes in.
Made by Samyang, a South Korean food company, Buldak is so hot that it became its own challenge in the wider world of online spicy food-eating trends in the late 2010s.
That was a happy accident, according to The Wall Street Journal. But the spice and flavor? Months of development and a personal too-hot-to-handle food-eating experience, Samyang's CEO Kim Jung-soo told WSJ.
Kim, who took the company's helm in September, told the publication that the idea for Buldak came around the spring of 2010 when she and her daughter ate at a fried rice restaurant popular for its hot dishes.
The two couldn't handle the spiciness, but Kim still believed there was a market for a spicier ramen.
"We have to do a ramen version of this," she recalled to WSJ.
According to Kim, Samyang's food development team took months to perfect the flavor, going through 1,200 chickens and two tons of sauce.
Kim herself initially couldn't handle the spiciness of Buldak — its original flavor rated at around 4,000 Scoville Heat Units. But the product took off in Korea and, soon, in the US.
Walmart told WSJ that Buldak is one of the top-selling premium ramen on its shelves. Costco also has been selling Buldak at some West Coast locations and is considering expanding the ramen's availability throughout the US, Samyang told the publication.
Online, adventurous eaters have challenged themselves to see how quickly they can eat a package of Buldak or how many packages of Buldak they can eat before they tap out. Many can be seen breaking out in sweat and tears.
Since Buldak's debut in 2012, Samyang has introduced different flavors, including a carbonara flavor and a hotter version of the original Buldak, making it one of the spiciest instant ramens on the market.
