[elvinyung]

Note that as you mentioned since most shops in Japan specialize in a specific type of soup (i.e. the only differentiator is the tare and the toppings), it might be more useful to familiarize oneself with the characteristics some of the more common regional styles. For example, "Hakata-style" ramen generally describes a creamy tonkotsu soup, "Kitakata-style" is generally a chintan with shoyu tare and hand kneaded "temomi" noodles, Yokohama "iekei" generally tends to be a paitan with shoyu tare, Sapporo ramen is generally a pork soup with miso tare, etc.

This is not to say that e.g. Sapporo only has Sapporo-style ramen or Fukuoka only has Hakata-style ramen, but the names describe where the style is perceived to have originated from.

The water is slightly muddied (no pun intended...) by techniques like "double soups", i.e. mixing multiple soups in the same bowl. In some cases a chintan might be mixed with a paitan, etc.