Over the past few years, we’ve seen a lot of viral coffee trends come and go here at Sprudge, and despite their apparent inconsistency, most of them have been, dare I say, okay? Everyone remembers the dalgona coffee moment, but then came the espresso, orange juice, and watermelon iced coffee, all of which were undeniably delicious. The avocado latte and the chive latte had mixed results. And the espresso martini is objectively awful, and you’ll never hear me say otherwise.
Still, coffee’s history of successfully combining oddball ingredients punches well above its weight. But the latest trend finds a companion that’s a bit more familiar: tea. The drink of summer in South Korea is called Ashotchu, and it combines espresso with iced tea.
It may not be the most inspiring of combinations, and it may be a bit on the nose, but good is good. Coffee and tea are traditionally seen as more or less equal, in the same way that, say, whiskey and gin are. They are the “base spirits” used to create different drinks. You can substitute one for the other—using tea instead of espresso, for example, to make a London Fog—but they rarely mix in the same glass. But split-base cocktails can be delicious, and coffee and tea can also find common ground.
Ashotchu seems like an uncomplicated win. As reported Chosun JournalThe drink combines espresso with iced tea, often with a fruity flavor like lemon or peach, for a nice, refreshing summertime caffeinated beverage. The drink itself isn’t exactly recent. Ashotchu first appeared online in 2018, but it wasn’t until earlier this year that it really took off, capitalizing on the “modisumer” trend — a portmanteau of the words “modify” and “consumer” — in which customers created their own off-menu concoctions.
Due to its popularity, several Korean coffee shop chains, such as Mega MGC Coffee, Paik’s Coffee, Compose Coffee, EDIYA Coffee, and bakery Tous Les Jour, have added Ashotchu to their regular menus. Another coffee shop chain, A Twosome Place, added the drink to its menu in June, selling over 900,000 units in just two months, making it “the fastest-selling product in the brand’s history,” according to The Chosun Daily.
Not everyone is convinced by this combination, though. Some call it “the worst combination that ruins both coffee and iced tea” or “a strange brew with mismatched flavors.” It’s demanding to see how Ashotchu could be bad, though. It may not be something mind-blowing, but the level seems pretty high.
Iced tea with lemon and a nicely washed Ethiopia seems like the perfect combination of like-minded florals and sour ingredients. Or maybe an iced tea with peaches and a deeply fruity, anaerobically fermented, naturally processed jam could be truly transcendent. Honestly, my only complaint is that I’m just now learning about this trend. Peach season is teetering on its last legs, and they’ve already spiced almost everything with pumpkin, so it’s just bad timing. I mean, I’ll keep drinking them because my own personal hell (read: Texas) probably still has a few 100-degree days around the corner. But the rest of you in temperate climates might just have to wait until 2025.
