Actor Jung Il-woo credited as originator of dalgona coffee craze: 'Should have patented it'

Actor Jung Il-woo has been identified as the person who first introduced dalgona coffee on television — the whipped coffee drink that swept the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Appearing on the YouTube channel "Aldaldal Chamgyeon" on Tuesday, Jung reflected on his variety show appearances, including his time on KBS 2TV's "Pyeonstorang," a convenience store recipe competition show.

Fellow cast member Ahn Jae-hyun said Jung had been the first to develop the drink on the show during the pandemic. "There was a coffee that Jung Il-woo created for the very first time on 'Pyeonstorang' during COVID-19," Ahn said. "That was dalgona coffee — the one you stir like crazy."

When other cast members expressed surprise, saying it sounded familiar, Ahn added, "Il-woo was the first one to reveal it on TV."

Jung said he had given interviews to The New York Times and the BBC because of it. "I heard it was the No. 1 search term on Google worldwide at the time," he said.

Ahn lamented that Jung's name had been left out of the story. "Only dalgona went viral — his name got dropped," he said.

Comedian Heo Gyeong-hwan chimed in, saying Jung should have filed a patent, to which Jung replied, "That never even crossed my mind."

Dalgona coffee is made by whipping instant coffee, sugar and hot water together until the mixture reaches a cream-like consistency, then spooning it over milk. In 2020, Jung introduced the recipe on "Pyeonstorang," adapting a drink he had tried at a cafe in Macau. The name spread rapidly, and tens of thousands of related posts flooded social media.

Jung also shared the recipe on his own social media at the time: two spoonfuls each of instant coffee and sugar, hot water added and stirred hundreds of times to create a foam, then placed on top of iced milk. Easy to replicate at home during lockdown, the recipe spread by word of mouth and took off across YouTube and social media.