The coffee drink that brings me through this summer

Like a large part of the rest of the world, I spent many at home in 2020. My core memories from this year consist mainly from social distance, intensive hand washing and cooking through the books that had been on my shelf for a long time. But there is a recipe that I have made this year again and again: Dalgona coffee.

Made by treating instant coffee, sugar and hot water until the mixture resembles a fluffy meringue, the sweet drink dominated social media feeds this year and aroused the interest of millions (including me) at home. It is no surprise that the drink was such a hit. Dalgona coffee that Los Angeles Times describes as a “photogenic Instagram bait”, was practically developed for virality: it is aesthetically appealing, requires only three ingredients and is just like a magic trick as a recipe. At a moment when most of us couldn’t just go down to our favorite café for a cup of Joe, it seemed … trying to try. But in contrast to many culinary trends that I tried during the pandemic, this part of my repertoire has remained, and I particularly love a coffee in Dalgona on an oppressive day.

Where does Dalgona come from?

Dalgona coffee exploded more and more than the Korean actor Jung Il-Woo was file Try the drink for the first time in the Hon Kee Café in Macau and compared it to Dalgona Candy, a Korean sweetness that tastes like toffee. “When I was in primary school, they sold burned sugar from (the) school,” says Jung to the camera. “It tastes of it after a melted version.” Although many people combine the drink with Korean, its roots are much darker because many cultures all over the world have their own version of impact coffee. There is Phenti Hui in India; in Greece, the beaten; And the Cuban café in Cuba.

The owner of Hon Kee Café, Leong Ham Kon, told it Macau Post daily In 1997 he took the technology for the drink from a couple that Macau visited every year to take part in the city’s Grand Prix, although he only tried his hand in 2004 when the actor Chow Yun-Fat in Hong Kong visited the café. Leong endeavored to impress Chow and made him a cup of hand -whipped coffee. Chow loved it so much that he was Leong better than some coffee he had in five-star hotels. Since then, Leong has been serving the drink – according to which he has been stirring by stirring the immediate coffee and the sugar mixture 400 times by hand! – in his café.

The science behind Dalgona coffee

Let’s start with the basics: Dalgona coffee is a foam. A foam like the serious eating contribution Kevin Liu has written for usis the dispersion of gas into a liquid, such as beating air bubbles in protein, to make meringue, heavy cream for the production of whipped cream or a mixture of instant coffee, sugar and water to produce Dalgona coffee. In the case of meringue, the bubbles are coated and hung up by protein proteins. In whipped cream, the blisters are kept by the fat molecules of the heavy cream. These protein and fat molecules act as surfactants that, as Daniel wrote HereForms a shell around the bubbles and stabilizes them.

With coffee in Dalgona there is minimal fat and protein. So what is a tenside? If you have ever seen a freshly drawn espresso, you probably noticed the crema, a red -brown foam that forms on the shot. According to James Hoffmann, the award -winning barista and author of How to make the best coffee at homeRoasting coffee beans produces melanoidine, a foam agent that is responsible for the crema and cappuccino bubbles. In his Dalgona coffee videoHe suspects that he suspects that these foam agents act as surfactants – the restriction is that surfactants alone do not make a perfectly stable foam. Leave out espresso for a few minutes and you will see how the crema dissolves.

Melanoidin acts as a surfactant by helping the air bubbles that we insert by whip. The longer you whip, the smaller the bubbles get, which leads to a more stable foam that can keep its shape longer. But the viscosity of the coffee, sugar and water mixture is also crucial to help Dalgona coffee maintain its shape. Foams writes gastronomist, this in his book Molecular gastronomy“To be stabilized by increasing the viscosity of its liquid phase (e.g. by adding sugar and glycerin).” The thicker the mixture is, the slower your drainage is. In short, that means that it takes longer for each liquid to drop – what happens when a meringue is crying.

This would explain why most coffee recipes in Dalgona require equal parts for immediate coffee, sugar and water. As you will see from my recipe below, you do not have to use 1: 1 ratio of instant coffee to sugar. You only need enough sugar to increase the viscosity of the mixture. Here I use 2 parts coffee up to 1 part of the volume, but I do not recommend reducing the amount of sugar beyond.

How to make Dalgona coffee

Here are the basic instructions for the production of Dalgona coffee: dissolving instant coffee and granulated sugar in hot water, the curse (either by hand or with an electric mixer) until it was fluffy and double, and then over a glass of milk. While Leong Ham Kon, the founder of the Hon Kee Café, produces his coffee in Dalgona until it only damages – most people, including me, prefer the faster option to use an electric mixer. You can certainly make it by hand, but the resulting foam will be much softer.

Can you prepare Dalgona coffee with beautiful immediate coffee?

Dalgona coffee demands immediate coffee granules that make it possible to put a lot of coffee taste in the foam without inserting additional water that would dilute the viscosity that is necessary to keep a somewhat stable foam. However, immediate coffee is not exactly celebrated for its taste. Now, however, many serious coffee roasters are coming to the Instant coffee roomExcept with more delicious results.

Curious to see whether Daniel was a foamy special coffee foamy, my recipe with an immediate coffee from an artisan roaster. Even after the mixture in the bowl of his blender whipped for 14 minutes, the mixture did not hold a stable foam that quickly collapsed into a non -built -in puddle. “I think we can say with certainty that special coffee will not foam like simple instant coffee,” he sent me to Slack.

I can’t say for sure, but I have an idea of why it may not work. Beautier immediate coffee is usually freezing, which contributes to maintaining the oils that give coffee to its rich aroma. Just like a meringue Will not whip too If there is fat in the bowl, it is possible that the presence of these oils in freezer -dried coffee with specialties becomes more difficult to report. On the other hand, cheaper immediate coffee is sprayed: coffee is injected into hot air, which dries it through evaporation and leaves dehydrated coffee granulate.

In a paper that was published in which Tea and coffee trade journalDr. Terry Mabbett notes that the “oil content with low coffee” from immediate coffee makes spray coffee so ideal for foam. While freezer -dried coffee can be aromatic, the coffee oils that occur can “quickly stimulate and accelerate the collapse of the foaming process”.

This does not mean that you couldn’t play around to get it going. It is possible that some brands of high-end comfort coffee work better than others. It is also possible that adjustments to the recipe can optimize a certain coffee brand. Adding Xanthan chewing gum or gelatin or manipulating the temperature of the coffee mixture could help to keep the special immediate coffee. In his video, Hoffmann creates that his coffee in Dalgona will work with beautiful immediate coffee by leaving his mixture in the freezer in the freezer for a few minutes to reduce the temperature, making it viscoser and more easily whipped into a foam.

Whether it is worth experimenting to make a brand of coffee for coffee for work depends on how important the quality of the coffee is for you. If you only want to make a funny caffeine drink that takes less than five minutes from the start to the end, it is probably better to use only old instant coffee.

Apart from the convenience, I also think that there is an aroma -based argument for cheap instant coffee: it usually comes from much dark roasted beans that have a sharp, burned taste. Mixed with lots of milk and sugar, this burned taste is much tasty, like burned caramel … similar to the very Dalgona Candy Jung Il-Woo compared the drink with the first viral sip. Perhaps it is cheaper instant coffee how Dalgona should taste.

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