Dalgona Coffee

Dalgona coffee is instant coffee, sugar and hot water, in equal parts, whipped into a thick, glossy, toffee-coloured foam and spooned over a glass of milk. It became a worldwide craze in early 2020, when people stuck at home during the pandemic filmed themselves making it. The name is Korean, the café that inspired it is in Macau, and its closest relative is Indian. Here’s how to make it, and the tangled story of where it comes from.

The short version

• 1:1:1: a tablespoon each of instant coffee, sugar and hot water.
• Whipped until thick, then spooned over milk, cold or hot.
• Named after dalgona, a Korean honeycomb toffee.
• From a café in Macau, made famous by Korean actor Jung Il-woo.
• Related to India’s beaten coffee, or phenti hui.

How do you make dalgona coffee?

Sporked’s recipe:

Ingredient	Amount
Instant coffee	1 tablespoon
Sugar	1 tablespoon
Hot water	1 tablespoon
Milk	A glass, cold or hot

1. Combine the instant coffee, sugar and hot water in a bowl. Gwangju News says a bigger bowl whips in more air, for a fluffier foam.
2. Whip until it’s thick and holds its shape. Sporked recommends a hand or stand mixer: whisking by hand is “super time consuming and tedious”. It adds that basic instant coffee works fine.
3. Fill a glass at least half full with milk; Gwangju News says to add more milk if you find it too strong.
4. Spoon the foam on top, and stir it in as you drink. Wikipedia mentions toppings such as coffee powder, cocoa, crumbled biscuits or honey.

Where does dalgona coffee come from?

Three places, depending on how far back you go.

Macau. The drink is credited to Leong Kam Hon, owner of a café in Macau. Sporked says he learned it from a visiting couple in 1997, then served it to actor Chow Yun-fat in 2004, who loved it, so it became a regular on the menu. Wikipedia notes he’s a former shipwright who opened the café, later named Hon Kee, after an accident to his arm.

Korea. In January 2020, Korean actor Jung Il-woo visited the café for the TV show Stars’ Top Recipe at Fun-Staurant. The coffee was whipped by hand about 400 times, BuzzFeed News reports, and Jung said it tasted like a melted version of dalgona, a Korean honeycomb toffee that Gwangju News says first appeared in 1960s Busan. Koreans started making it at home, and the #dalgonacoffeechallenge spread from Korean YouTube to TikTok in March 2020, Wikipedia says, earning the nickname “quarantine coffee”.

India. Gwangju News argues that what the internet named dalgona coffee is really India’s beaten coffee, made by beating instant coffee and sugar; the difference is that the paste usually goes in the glass first and warm milk is poured over it. Wikipedia notes the same similarity to Indian phenti hui coffee.

Question	What the sources say
Who first made it?	Leong Kam Hon in Macau, from 1997 (Sporked; Wikipedia)
Is it really new?	No: India’s beaten coffee is the same idea (Gwangju News; Wikipedia)
Who named it?	Jung Il-woo, comparing it to dalgona candy (Sporked; BuzzFeed News)

The credit matters to people. A US company, Whipped Drinks, sold a whipped coffee kit while claiming to have created the drink, BuzzFeed News reported; after a backlash it apologised and acknowledged the drink’s Korean roots.

Dalgona vs other iced coffees

• Greek frappé: instant coffee shaken, not whipped, and poured over ice.
• Iced latte: espresso and cold milk over ice.
• Vietnamese iced coffee: phin coffee with condensed milk over ice.
• Café cubano: coffee whipped with sugar into a sweet foam.

Explore every drink in the iced and blended chapter.