Dalgona Coffee — tasting notes & food pairings

Dalgona Coffee

Dalgona coffee is a two-layer drink of cold or hot milk crowned with a thick, fluffy foam of whipped instant coffee. The foam is made from equal parts instant coffee, granulated sugar and hot water beaten together until the mixture pales, stiffens and holds soft peaks like a coffee-flavoured meringue, then spooned in a caramel-coloured cloud over a glass of milk. Stirred together it tastes of sweet, creamy, roasty coffee; left in layers it is a striped drink that reads as coffee cream floating on milk. Sometimes called "whipped coffee", it became a global sensation in the spring of 2020, when housebound people everywhere whisked it up and shared it on social media.

SweetNon-alcoholic

Dalgona coffee leads with a big, sweet hit of whipped coffee — concentrated instant-coffee roastiness wrapped in toffee-caramel sugar, dense and almost meringue-like on the spoon — sitting over cool, creamy milk that mellows and lengthens it. Stirred together the two become a sweet, full-bodied, latte-like drink where the roasted coffee and burnt-sugar caramel dominate and the milk rounds off the edges; left in layers, the airy foam reads as a rich coffee cream floating on plain milk. It is much sweeter and more intensely coffee-forward than a plain latte, with a soft, foamy texture on top and a smooth milky body below.