Dalgona coffee
You might remember it as whipped coffee
This spread through many posts rather than one canonical upload.
2020·Short-form and streams·oddly-satisfying
Instant coffee, sugar and hot water whipped to a foam and spooned onto milk.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- whipped coffee
- Spread in
- 2020
- Format
- Challenge
- Made by
- Leong Kam Hon, a former shipwright, at the Hon Kee café in Macau
- Original title
- Named by the actor Jung Il-woo, who thought it tasted like dalgona, a Korean honeycomb toffee
- Origin
- No single original
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
Equal parts instant coffee, sugar and hot water, whipped by hand until it stiffens into a pale caramel foam, then spooned onto cold milk. It takes several hundred strokes and no equipment. The drink comes from Macau; South Korea gave it the name dalgona, after a sugar candy it resembles, when a television programme featured it in January 2020.
It became the reference point for everything that followed — banana bread, sourdough, whipped everything — and for a whole genre of pandemic reporting about food and boredom. Instant coffee sales rose. It is now dated, in the way things are that everyone did once.
Why it matteredWhat changed
A drink served in a Macau café since 1997 was named on Korean television in January 2020 and spread on TikTok two months later, where it was called the quarantine drink.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Leong makes the drink for two tourists.1
- Made
Jung Il-woo orders it in Macau on a Korean television programme and gives it a name.1
- Took off
A Korean YouTuber’s video of making it gains attention.1
- Took off
It spreads on TikTok during social distancing in South Korea.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asA Korean invention.
ActuallyKorea gave it the name. The drink was being made in Macau in 1997, and beaten coffee in India is older.1
Commonly remembered asIt contains dalgona.
ActuallyIt usually contains no toffee at all.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
Where it came fromWhat we know
This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. No copy is held here — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things