Isolation Diaries: Claudia
This is absolutely NOT the Dalgona coffee that Claudia made. Here’s what it should have looked like though.
My Disastrous Dalgona Coffee Experience
Before I begin I feel like there’s some explaining to do. At the time of writing (Monday 27th April 2020, circa fifteen hundred hours), I was deep into the prescribed 14 days of self-isolation after a (very selfish) member of my household started displaying coronavirus symptoms. I had not left the house in over a week and we were too proud to ask neighbours to get us shopping, so we were constricted to a traumatising diet. I won’t go into detail about the “meals” I concocted as the thought of them excites an overwhelming sense of shame that I can only imagine cannibals feel after their first hesitant mouthful of human. And then enjoyment. Also, I’ve convinced myself that I have self-diagnosed dyslexia after I recently misread “All I Could Do Was Cry by Etta James” as “All I Could Do Was Eat by Cretta Jones.” Who is this songstress Cretta Jones and why is her music so relatable yet so unappreciated in her lifetime? I digress. Basically, this is my first attempt at “creative” writing since I was a dewy-eyed, acne-prone GSCE student. And without the firm yet necessary iron fist of my beloved English teacher (who will remain nameless for his/her own protection), I feel lost. So please be gentle.
My multiple failed attempts to spell “Dalgona” were foreshadowing. It reminded me of the scene in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets where Harry awkwardly mispronounces “Diagon Alley” when he’s using the Weasley’s magic fireplace porthole and ends up in the creepy back streets inhabited by pervy witches, and there’s that weird hand thing? It was a cinematic moment that embodied my childhood trauma (not trauma of getting lost on my own in a sinister location like the supermarket, but mispronouncing things in front of other people’s parents). This “article” will reveal that, like Harry, I too ended up in a dark place, but there was no man-mountain Hagrid to save me.
For context, I had been inundated with photos and TikToks and articles dedicated to the Dalgona whipped coffee hysteria. Usually, I laugh in the face of these youthful trends. “Ha ha ha,” I would say. I have been resisting the temptation to download and sign my soul over to TikTok with the strength of a group of monks out on a day trip who accidentally wander into a brothel. But I could see the endless appeal of this caffeine extravaganza. Photos of those fluffy, caramel-y clouds atop glasses of chilled milk - or your chosen dairy-free substitute - would reduce me to uncontrollable salivation. And when you literally have nothing else to do (other than three essays and a whole year’s worth of online French modules you’ve been ignoring), and when there’s not much left in the fridge and if the neighbours’ cat is looking less tasty than it was yesterday, I had to give into the craze and try it for myself.
You would think that with such simple instructions and only four ingredients (2 tablespoons of instant coffee, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of water, and as much milk as your heart desires) it would be beyond impossible to mess it up. But here we are. The first thing that went wrong was the fact that the instant coffee had crystallised in its jar into a rock formation which needed to be excavated. I had to break it up by repeatedly stabbing at it, while the music from that scene is Psycho pulsated through my head. The second sign that this was all a huge mistake and a massive waste of time was how ugly it was. It looked like someone had defecated in my glass. And an ice cube in milk is one of the most unnatural and un-aesthetic things I have seen in my entire life. Like looking at yellow snow, but knowing that you have to eat it.
At first, drinking my concoction was not dissimilar to drinking coffee for the first time when I was but a mere tiny child. I remember being lured into that false sense of comfort where you think you’re going to indulge in a cup of special liquid chocolate just for grownups, only to be overwhelmed by the sensation that you have a mouthful of dirt that lingers on your tongue for hours and hours. We have a strict waste-not-want-not policy in my household, especially now, so I felt compelled to consume all of the wobbly, discoloured, and now porous substance. I have never had such a strong physical reaction before. It was like I had the rat from Ratatouille hidden in my barnet, tugging at strands of unkempt hair in a desperate attempt to control my flailing limbs. I felt drunk and woozy but at the same time painfully alert to everything. Anxiety pulsated through me, and I had an overpowering susceptibility that my eyes were going to shoot out of my nostrils, like some twisted human anatomical version of the family favourite KerPlunk™. All the while, my sphincter quivered like a hissing sphynx cat.
On reflection, this response was probably because I hadn’t had coffee for over two months and my only caffeine intake has been my daily cup of Twinings Lady Grey, sipped daintily to accompany a butter-soaked crumpet, crowned with golden apricot jam at precisely 4pm while I do a crossword. (No sir, I simply can not and will not be tamed). So to go from that to suddenly consuming TWO TABLESPOONS of pure caffeine in the space of 10 minutes, I can see why my body had a bit of a moment. The worst part was that I’d used up so much milk in my various attempts to perfect this frothy fiend, that I had forced my father to make his morning porridge with water for the next week. Historically speaking, that was the only time the expression “no point crying over spilt milk” has ever resulted in steaming, bland porridge being flicked in someone’s face.
Do I deeply regret this entire experience? Well yeah, I regret most things I do, but that’s a different story. But, dear reader, if you’re still here, without this experience I wouldn’t have had the uncontainable energy, perverted will-power, and sense of delusion to write this “article.” And the world would be a much better place.
Be sure to stay tuned for my next installment, when I try injecting disinfectant à la Donald Trump.
Claudia Stanley is a third year student at the University of Edinburgh studying History of Art and French.