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Author:
Franco Salzillo
The Dalgona coffee is more than a drink; it’s a cultural phenomenon and one of the first coffee-related viral drinks — it became popular with the young crowd through social media and turned out to be a creamy and sweet alternative to coffee shop drinks.
That’s the neat thing about the dalgona. It tastes like made by a barista, but it’s made at home with just four readily available ingredients. Isn’t that cool? Korean influencers devised this tasty treat to make the most out of the 2020 global quarantine — it was meant to enjoy your time at home with a specialty coffee as good as any.
The trend soon became global, and now we all enjoy a Dalgona from time to time, especially when we don’t want (or can’t) visit a coffee shop for a creamy drink. So, is this specialty really so good? It is! And I’m showing you how to make a pretty good one below.
A Dalgona coffee calls for instant coffee, sugar and milk. You’ll also need a few tablespoons of warm water to dissolve the coffee, and no, you can’t use fresh coffee for this one. This drink’s signature foam can only be replicated by whipping instant coffee and sugar.
Once you have a nice frothy foam, you can just scoop it over a warm or cold cup of milk, or, like we’re doing today, you can carefully pour the milk over the foam. The result is a creamy, beautifully tanned drink that’s just right. Mildly sweet, nicely toasty and delightfully creamy, this one is a beauty!
Instant coffee is not the same as ground coffee. Ground coffee is made with coffee beans, and you still have to extract their flavor by steeping them in warm water. The spent grains are then discarded.
Instant coffee, or, better said, freeze-dried coffee, is actual brewed coffee that has been dehydrated to eliminate the water but keep coffee’s essence. The finest instant coffee is made with nice coffee — often labeled as instant espresso; you want to use a nice kind of instant coffee for this one. The rest is easy. Are you ready to try it?
In a mug, combine the instant coffee with the sugar and water and whisk until it’s incorporated and foamy.
Pour the mixture into a glass and top the milk carefully by pouring from a side. The foam will rise for a lovely cap.
