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Nihachi soba means "2-8 noodles". Two reasons for this : a cup of soba costs 16 (=2x8) mon, and the Edo recipe for soba is two parts of wheat flour (udon) mixed with eight parts of buckwheat flour (actually soba).
The word "Nihachi" itself was slang for a sixteen-year-old girl. Geishas used to answer the question of their age in this way. This expression has a long cultural tradition. For example, it was used by Ikkyu in the 15th century. with reference to kōan No. 162 (an old woman burns down a hermitage) from the collection of old Chinese kōans "Shūmon kattōshū".
(translated from Steiner 2016)
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