What The F Is Dalgona Coffee & Why Is Everyone Drinking It?
One of our favourite features from back in May 2020, eight months on and we’re still loving this easy coffee trick…
There have been some standout stars of this lockdown, from the very worthy Captain Tom to the binge-worthy Normal People to, erm, sourdough starters.
Strange times bring with them strange obsessions and if you’ve eaten all the banana bread you can stomach, dusted off your running shoes and completed that 1000 piece jigsaw, it’s time for another lockdown fad: dalgona coffee.
Short of it sounding like a Game of Thrones character’s Starbucks order, dalgona coffee has been popping up all over Instagram feeds – it’s even spawned a hashtag with over 75,000 uses on Instagram – #dalgonacoffeechallenge – in which people show off their creations. But we can confirm it’s not all styling and Insta bragging over substance – these things taste good.
It’s essentially a fancy coffee – yep, there are more ways to sex up a latte than you might think – and the best bit is you don’t need an espresso machine to make it.
The recipe is simple, you make the sweet, caffeinated drink by whipping equal proportions of instant coffee powder, sugar, and hot water until it becomes creamy and then add cold or hot milk. What you’re left with is a rich, milky drink topped with a beautifully unctuous, butterscotch-hued froth. In short: Instagram fodder at its finest.
The most important part to the process is getting the measures right – we recommend starting off with two teaspoons of each ingredient plus the milk.
What you’re left with is a rich, milky drink topped with a beautifully unctuous, butterscotch-hued froth. In short: Instagram fodder at its finest.
And then there is the whisking, which feels like it’s taking an age – about three to four minutes should do it – but it’s worth it to get the mixture to a deliciously creamy, bubble-filled consistency.
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
Word of warning however: these are made using instant coffee so any diehard coffee aficionados (read: East London hipsters) out there are probably going to think it taste slike, well, instant coffee. And sadly it’s the consistency and potency of instant coffee over espresso that allows it to build that plump froth.
Although relatively new in the UK, dalgona-esque coffees are very popular in Asia and are thought to have hailed from Macau and are a regular on the Korean street snack scene. There’s also a huge trend for adding your dalgona coffee cream into desserts, from layered puddings to sundaes, tiramisus to froth-topped cakes.
Restaurants and cafes might be closed right now in the UK but we’re sure it’ll only be a matter of time before we’re drinking the Internet’s new favourite drink at home and in our local Gail’s.
