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Dalgona Coffee
It only exists because an actor said a whipped coffee in Macau tasted like childhood candy. A pandemic did the rest.
A Korean actor sipped a whipped coffee in a Macau cafรฉ and said it tasted like dalgona โ Korea's honeycomb toffee candy. That's the whole reason for the name. The whipping technique wasn't new; versions had quietly existed in India for years as phenti hui coffee.
Then March 2020 happened. Millions of people were stuck at home with nothing to do and hands that needed occupying โ and whipping equal parts instant coffee, sugar, and hot water into a thick, glossy foam that holds its shape atop a glass of milk turned out to be exactly that. TikTok and Instagram did the rest: at its April 2020 peak, the drink was generating millions of posts a week, invented by no one in particular and craved by everyone.
Origin & History
The drink is named after "dalgona," a Korean honeycomb toffee candy. A South Korean actor visiting a cafรฉ in Macau remarked that a similar whipped coffee he tried there tasted like dalgona candy, which sparked its Korean name. The whipping technique itself is not new โ versions of it exist in India (phenti hui coffee) and other regions. The global spread in 2020 was entirely driven by TikTok and Instagram.
Fun Fact
At its peak in April 2020, "dalgona coffee" was generating millions of social media posts per week globally. It became one of the most viral food trends in history โ not because it was invented by a cafรฉ or celebrity chef, but because millions of isolated people needed something to do with their hands during lockdown.
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