Why can Dalgona Coffee teach you how to make a professional Dagna coffee around the world?

Spend any time on social media and you'll notice the trend that the platform encourages people to try viral foods and drinks and tailor them to your preferences. Some drinks have become popular because of their unique appearance and that anyone can remake them at home.

In South Korea, this paves the way for a revival of homemade stirred coffee drinks known as Dalgona Coffee. The drink's unique frothy look has made it popular on Instagram and TikTok-the current Google search for Dalgona Coffee recipes will yield more than 8 million results.

Who invented Dagna coffee?

Although Dalgona Coffee has grown in popularity this year, it has been popular for several years in other countries such as Macau and India, where it is better known as Phenti Hui Coffee, fresh milk coffee or Indian-style cappuccino. It is said that its new name comes from the fact that the whipping foam on the top of the drink is similar to a popular Korean candy called Dalgona, a honeycomb candy made from sugar, oil and baking soda.

The main difference between Dalgona Coffee and its Indian predecessor is the order in which the two drinks are assembled. Phenti Hui coffee is made by stirring the same amount of coffee, sugar and hot water in a bowl until the mixture dissolves and forms a light-colored foam. Once completed, more water will be added gradually until the right amount of foam is produced. Then add the foam to the cup and fill it with hot water and milk, then adjust the taste.

When using Dalgona Coffee, the foam mixture is usually poured into the top of a glass filled with iced milk and ice cubes to produce attractive layering and cool drinks. Other versions have also been created, such as putting a foam layer on seasoned milk, seasoning and coloring the foam, or adding alcohol to the mixture.

According to a video by James Hoffman (James Hoffmann) on the subject, the dense and persistent quality of Dagna's foam comes from melanin compounds present in instant coffee, which are responsible for peeling in espresso. By mixing instant coffee with a thick concentrated sugar and aqueous solution, the foam can better maintain its shape-the intense stirring required will create tiny bubbles in the foam, allowing it to float on the surface of the beverage without disappearing.

What do professional coffee experts think?

When it comes to opinions about Dalgona Coffee in the specialty coffee industry, opinions are divided. People like Vanessa Vanessa Lee think it can be used as an inspiration for other coffee-based drinks.

Vanessa Lee is a coffee shop consultant for Forbidden Bean, a professional coffee consultancy in Hong Kong. Dagona Coffee is "worth a try and brings great inspiration to creative drinks," she said. "it's a good inspiration for baristas to explore the possibility of creating different textures of coffee (instead of playing with milk or syrup all the time)," she added. and it's a good example of how the market responds to coffee. You can drink Instagram drinks instead of tasting delicious drinks. I think this is a lesson that all cafe owners and baristas should remember. "

Others believe that the ingredients used in the drink may affect its quality. James Hoffman (James Hoffmann) said in a video about Dalgona Coffee that the main attraction of the drink is its simplicity. This is a method of preparation, he warns. "the return from it is as good as the return on investment."

Make a professional version of DALGONA COFFEE

With the rise of Dalgona Coffee among global coffee drinkers, the specialty coffee industry will naturally wonder if specialty coffee can be replicated. However, this brings its own challenges.

While a sip of espresso seems to be the easiest solution, James James Hoffman points out that standard espresso can still be diluted. Trying to reduce it by heating will release an unpleasant flavor, while pumping an espresso can into a vacuum chamber will reduce its volume, but may lose some of the espresso fragrance, he added.

Manual brewing can produce better results, if not exactly the same. The space roaster is a coffee roaster located in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. They created a drink that included brewing a freshly ground roasted coffee in two portions of hot water in AeroPress. They then added the mixture and a portion of sugar to the water bottle and shook violently for 10 minutes to produce Dalgona-like foam.

Pour&Twist, a manual pub in New Zealand, uses a similar method. They suggest adding finely chopped, lightly baked single-source beans and water to the AeroPress. Stir the maple syrup and chilled cream to the middle peak, then add the coffee mixture soup by soup-because the acid in the coffee separates it. Although the results are undoubtedly delicious, they warn that its richness makes it unsuitable for daily consumption.

It seems that hand brewing can make coffee very close to Dagona coffee-but the resulting foam may lack the glossy texture and hardness of instant coffee.

The situation around the popularity of Dalgona Coffee is unique, so its popularity in the coffee industry in the future remains to be seen.

Although it is best made with instant coffee and does not set aside too much space for special coffee experiments, this is an innovative way for coffee drinkers to maintain their interest in drinks, and this time it is impossible to visit a local coffee shop or bakery.

Freshly brewed filtered coffee is not recommended for brewing Dalgona coffee-nor do we recommend that you replace your daily filtered coffee or espresso with Dalgona coffee. Instead, think of it as an interesting recipe, and if you have free time, you can try it once or twice to make sure you make a fuss.