The 60-second sip
- Ramune is the Japanese name for a fizzy drink sealed by a glass marble in a Codd-neck bottle. The word comes from “lemonade”.
- India has made the same kind of drink since the late nineteenth century. There it is called goli soda: goli means marble.
- Goli Pop Soda is India's marble soda in a glass bottle, with 6 g of added fibre and low in sugar, sold in more than 11 countries.
- Shops, cafés and importers that stock ramune can add it: boxes of 24 or 6, loose orders from 5,000 bottles of each flavour.
What is ramune?
Ramune is one of Japan's best-loved soft drinks, and a name rather than a brand: many makers in Japan sell it. Its name is how “lemonade” sounded in Japanese. By most accounts it was first sold in the 1880s through the port of Kobe; some trace fizzy lemonade in Japan back to the American ships of 1853. Today it belongs to summer: festivals, fireworks and the small ceremony of pushing the marble in with the plunger that comes in the cap.
In Japan the bottle is the point. A soda sealed by a marble is called ramune, while the same kind of drink under an ordinary cap is called “cider”. As one Japanese guide puts it, nowadays only the packaging tells the two apart.
Is there an Indian ramune?
Yes, and it is as old as the Japanese one. The Codd-neck bottle reached India in the late nineteenth century too, and India kept it when most of the world moved to metal caps. Indians call the drink goli soda (goli is a marble) or, in Delhi, banta. It is the same bottle, opened the same way, with the same pop.
Goli Pop Soda is that Indian marble soda, made new and made for export. It is made in Surat, India, with flavours of its own.
Ramune and goli soda, side by side
| Ramune | Goli soda (Goli Pop) | |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Japan | India |
| The name | From “lemonade” | From goli, a marble |
| Since | The nineteenth century | The late nineteenth century |
| The bottle | Codd-neck, sealed by a marble | Codd-neck, sealed by a marble |
| Bottle today | Glass or plastic, by maker | Glass |
| Opening | Press the marble in with the plunger from the cap | Press the marble in with the plunger from the cap |
| Flavours | The original lemon-lime, and many fruit flavours | Lemon Lime, Strawberry Lime, Blueberry Lime, Ginger Lime, Orange Crush, Dream Cream |
| In the bottle | By maker | 6 g of added fibre in 220 ml, low in sugar |
Glass, the original bottle
The first marble bottles were glass, and the marble is glass too. Many marble sodas sold today come in plastic bottles, which are cheaper and lighter. Goli Pop Soda keeps the glass bottle: glass gives nothing to the taste of the drink, and it gives the marble its clink.
How to open it
Tear the seal
Peel the seal band off the cap, all the way round.
Free the plunger
Lift the plunger off the cap and push it out of its safety ring.
Press and hold
Stand the bottle on a table, sit the plunger in its mouth and press down firmly with your palm. Hold for a few seconds while the fizz settles.
Pop, tilt, sip
The marble drops into the neck with a pop and stays there. Lift the plunger away, tilt gently and sip.