Is Dalgona Coffee Delicious? Should the 400-Minute Coffee Be Made with Espresso or Instant Freeze-Dried Powder?

Last year, FrontStreet Coffee covered a wildly viral coffee drink that swept the internet. Using a whisk, you whip the coffee from liquid into continuous expansion until it forms a dense, rich foam that floats like clouds over white milk. The texture is thick and mellow with a hint of caramel sweetness, and since the steps and ingredients aren't complicated, it drew legions of sweet-toothed enthusiasts to recreate it at home. This is the "400-Times Coffee."

Today, built on that famous drink, FrontStreet Coffee brings you its upgraded version — Frozen 400-Times Coffee. With just one additional step over the original, it achieves the rich layers of a snow-topped coffee. Sweet-toothed friends, this one's for you!

What Is "400-Times Coffee"?

400-Times Coffee — also called "400-Whisks Coffee" — takes its name because the drink tastes remarkably like a traditional Korean snack called dalgona (honeycomb sugar candy). It's also known as Dalgona Coffee or Caramel Foam Coffee.

Image credit: Korean variety show "New Product Launch Convenience Restaurant"

Its rise began on the Korean variety show "New Product Launch Convenience Restaurant," which featured a signature drink from a small local shop in Macau. The owner put instant coffee powder, sugar, and warm water into a cup in a 1:1:1 ratio, hand-whisked the mixture into cloud-like dense foam, then finished the drink with ice cubes and milk.

Afterward, more and more Korean celebrities began making it live on their streams and praised it to the skies. This hand-whisked coffee not only exploded in Korea but caught fire across all of Asia, and "400-Times Coffee" dominated social media feeds for a stretch.

400-Times Coffee 2.0

"Freeze the 400-Times Coffee" — that's the new twist FrontStreet Coffee stumbled upon while browsing the internet one day. Apparently, simply adding "freezing" to the original steps turns the coffee foam into an ice-cream-like texture. Scoop a spoonful over milk and you get a specialty coffee that wins on both taste and looks. Naturally, FrontStreet Coffee — a lover of coffee and desserts alike — had to try it.

Let's get started without further ado!

First, the materials: coffee, fine sugar, and helpers like an electric whisk and a freezer.

You have plenty of coffee options. Most online recipes use 3-in-1 instant coffee powder or freeze-dried powder, whisked after adding an equal portion of hot water. Because these products carry a higher solid content, their dissolved concentration in equal parts hot water far exceeds other coffees, making it easier to whip up a fluffy texture that holds without collapsing.

That said, freshly brewed strong coffee — including ordinary espresso and moka pot coffee — can also be whipped with sugar into a creamy texture; you just need to adjust the extraction concentration slightly.

For instance, FrontStreet Coffee's usual parameters today would be 20 grams of coffee grounds extracting 40ml of liquid in 29 seconds. For this drink, adjust to 30ml in 25 seconds — effectively a Ristretto. At that concentration, the espresso contains less water, which makes it far better at forming a milk-cap texture.

The same applies to the moka pot: normally you remove it from heat once the coffee liquid passes the halfway mark and let residual heat finish the extraction. To raise concentration, interrupt the heating early to cut the output — after testing, FrontStreet Coffee found you can switch off the heat when the coffee reaches about 1/4 of the upper pot.

Here, FrontStreet Coffee uses freshly extracted espresso and instant coffee powder to make two batches of frozen 400-Times Coffee and see how they stack up.

Espresso Group:

First, extract 30ml of liquid from 20g of coffee grounds, add 15 grams of fine sugar, combine them in a cup, and whip with the electric whisk until the aerated coffee foam holds a creamy, shape-retaining texture. FrontStreet Coffee spent nearly 16 minutes on this step.

The espresso version looks wonderfully soft and smooth.

Next, seal this "coffee milk cap" and place it in the freezer for more than two hours, until the foam has cooled through and turned ice-cream-like. Then pick a favorite glass, add ice cubes and milk, scoop in a spoonful of the frozen coffee foam, and crown it with a piece of caramel biscuit — frozen 400-Times Coffee, complete!

Instant Coffee Group:

Add 15 grams of instant coffee powder, 15 grams of hot water, and 15 grams of sugar to a cup in sequence, then whip with the electric whisk. This took about 13 minutes, and the following steps are identical.

The instant-coffee version comes out firmer.

Finally, FrontStreet Coffee compared the two batches and found the instant-coffee version carried a heavier bitterness from its raw materials. The frozen 400-Times Coffee made from espresso beat the instant version across the board — foam texture, aroma, and its taste as a latte with milk. The top foam was dense with a hint of coolness, carrying solid caramel and nut aromas, while the milk beneath was sweet, fragrant, and smooth. Delicious!!

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Espresso Blends for Every Need

Espresso beans generally come in two flavors: blends, which most cafés reach for first, and single origins (SOE) chosen for personal taste. The FrontStreet Classic Blend is the first pick — designed specifically for espresso machines and moka pots, its standout strength is outstanding crema: even a novice on a basic home machine can extract dense, silky foam, and its traditional Mocha-Java formula is mellow and rounded, friendly to veterans and newcomers alike. If perfect crema isn't your priority and you'd rather balance quality with cost, the FrontStreet Dark Cocoa Blend — 100% arabica, generous crema, full body, and an approachable price — is the budget-conscious café owner's answer; before it launched, that role belonged to the FrontStreet Commercial Blend, long the workhorse for shop use. And the FrontStreet Premium Blend is the house classic: nearly a decade as the store's daily driver for Americanos and lattes, pairing Brazil Cerrado with Colombia Huila for the most familiar, timeless espresso flavor.

SOE Options Worth Pulling

For a single origin that highlights what its region does best, consider the FrontStreet Natural Huakui SOE from Ethiopia's Guji Hambela — grown at elevations up to 2300 meters and naturally processed, it shows creamy strawberry alongside elegant florals, cocoa, berries, and black tea after a medium roast. The FrontStreet Costa Rica Blackberry SOE, a honey-processed lot whose beans absorb the pulp's blackberry-like aroma and sweetness during drying, makes a bright, sweet-tart Americano and a latte with cranberry cookie, raisin, and nut notes. And for low acidity with a gentle price tag, the FrontStreet Brazil Queen Estate SOE — the distinctive Yellow Bourbon variety — delivers butter cookie, macadamia, and toasted-bread creaminess when roasted medium-dark and pulled on an espresso machine.