There was one booth at CES Unveiled, the first big annual event at the Consumer Electronics Expo, that was busy the entire night. And rightfully so. The booth had easily one of the weirdest products, if not the weirdest product you'll see at this year's CES.
That product is Kirin's Electric Salt Spoon.
What is an Electric Salt Spoon, you ask? Good question! I didn't have the slightest clue myself and neither did all the other people lining up to check it out.
The Electric Salt Spoon is a spoon that makes your low-sodium food taste saltier without adding any extra salt. How? By sending an electric current through the spoon to your tongue.
It sounds absurd. So, naturally, I had to try it out.
The Electric Salt Spoon taste test
Kirin is a Japanese company that currently sells the Electric Salt Spoon in Japan. Unfortunately, it's currently unavailable in the U.S. Fortunately, Kirin brought some for CES attendees to test.
First, I took a sip of some soup that Kirin provided without the spoon. It wasn't too salty.
Next, I was handed the Electric Salt Spoon, which is actually made up of two separate pieces. The bowl of the spoon is detachable from the handle. The handle is where the product's power and menu buttons reside.
Users can choose their saltiness level out of a potential four different modes.
From there, comes the unexpected weird part. You need to hold the handle of the spoon with a fist, like you're a big baby who still doesn't know how to correctly hold a spoon. If you don't hold it correctly, the Electric Salt Spoon does not work. The blue light on the Electric Spoon Handle turns white only when you take a sip from the spoon and you're holding it correctly. The light mocked me numerous times just as I attempted to put the spoon in my mouth.
That was the biggest drawback of the Electric Salt Spoon. I had more trouble holding a spoon with my fist than I could have possibly imagined. I literally looked like a giant toddler, dribbling soup down my chin.
Anyway, does the Electric Salt Spoon work? The soup did taste a bit saltier when I was correctly using the spoon. But, I questioned: Was this just a placebo effect? Did I just think that the food tasted saltier because the product said it was going to do that?
This is where my inability to hold the spoon with my fist actually worked in my favor. As I tried to get the soup into my mouth again, my fingers slipped, disabling the device mid-sip. My tastebuds experienced a soup transform from salty to not-so-salty in a moment like magic.
It appears the Electric Salt Spoon does work!
Kirin's mission is certainly a noble one: Get people to eat less salt. We'll see if they succeed at doing so. But, mission accomplished at being the weirdest thing Mashable has seen at CES 2025 so far.
