Bengaluru youths storm Instagram, TikTok with global coffee-making trend

BENGALURU: If you are tempted to join the brigade of youngsters posting pictures of a foamy coffee mixture sitting on a glassful of milk and ice, you aren’t alone. It’s the latest fad on social media.
Lately, everyone on social media platforms seems to be jumping on the bandwagon for this special kind of frothy coffee — Dalgona Coffee. The trend, which began with a South Korean YouTube channel, has till date 96.6k posts on Instagram and 96.7k views on TikTok.Though it became popular globally in December, Indians began trying it out after the lockdown.

To get that foamy cuppa right, one must whip together two tablespoons each of sugar, coffee powder and hot milk, till the dark liquid turns into a light, foamy cloud-like mixture. It turns into an excellent photo-op when the mixture is added on top of a glass filled with ice and milk.
But it’s not just the pretty pictures that are making people try it; some also find the preparation process calming. Namrata Kumar, 19, a student, says she stumbled on the Dalgona Coffee video on TikTok. “Since the lockdown began, my anxieties were high. Watching Dalgona Coffee videos is fun and relaxing. I also tried my hand at it and I’ve mastered the technique,” says Namrata.
Bengalureans have also given a twist to the brew. For instance, Deborah Paul, a city-based special educator in autism, says it doesn’t always taste as good as it looks in pictures. “It tastes great when mixed aggressively until foam and milk become one,” she says.
Some are trying it out as part of the #DalgonaCoffeeChallenge. For many, recipes like this help keep their mind off the pandemic. But there are many who say this recipe isn’t new to Indians. Asiya Rehman, a techie, says it’s just a westernised version of local whipped coffee. “The difference is we add hot milk to the foam. Some of these trends are just our old Indian recipes with a Western twist,” she says.
Snigdha Chaturvedi, a city-based twitterati shared a picture of Dalgona Coffee with an ode to her grandmother’s recipe — “Dalgona coffee is just the flipped version of the ‘phiti hui’ (whipped) coffee, desi homes have been making for ages.”
There are also jokes about how people are trying Dalgona Coffee like it’s a cure for coronavirus, while some call it a wrist exercise in disguise. Atul Khatri,a popular standup comedian, tweeted a disclaimer: “WHO has specified that Dalgona coffee does not cure coronavirus.”