▲ The Picture of Shine Muscat

As of Friday, around 14,000 posts, with the hashtag about "Shine Muscat" by Koreans, have been uploaded to Instagram. Although it costs about 50,000 won in South Korea, a lot of consumers choose it and evaluate that it is worth about 50,000 won. If you only see the appearance of Shine Muscat, you may think that it looks like just an ordinary green grape where you cannot understand why it is popular. However, because of its mango flavor which makes the eaters taste so sweet, many consumers in South Korea buy and eat a number of Shine Muscats.

▲ The Farm that Cultivates Shine Muscats

The Shine Muscat industry grows so much that it even threats the original grape variety, which is called "Campbell grape". Shine Muscat was discovered by Japanese in 1988. In 2014, the Shine Muscat industry begun in South Korea. Shine Muscat is being cultivated about 963 hectares around the nation in 2018, which has increased three times more than in 2016. Also, the cultivation area of Shine Muscat occupies even about ten percent of all the cultivation areas of grapes. As you can see, not only the preference of Shine Muscat increases a lot, but shine muscat industry also increases than the past.

▲ The Eaters of Shine Muscat

Then, how does Shine Muscat gets an innumerable popularity? One of the advantages of Shine Muscat is that it has no seeds. Ordinary grapes have seeds that make the eaters uncomfortable. In contrast to ordinary grapes, Shine Muscat has no seeds, so it helps the consumers to eat grapes comfortably. Also, it has a sweet flavor. Its sugar content is five percent bigger than the other grapes, which attracted many consumers in South Korea who largely loves sweet flavor.

However, some people criticize the Shine Muscat fever in South Korea. They claimed that it is just a sudden popularity like the "avocado fever" in 2005. In order to sustain the Shine Muscat industry, producers struggle to improve its quality and try to see the future more than the present.

Nov. 4th, 2018

by Seo Dong Jae