How texture is shaping Korea's current food trends

Dubai chewy cookies are displayed at Cafe Kohiru, a dessert cafe in Seoul's Songpa District. Captured from Cafe Kohiru's Instagram

On a recent weekend afternoon, Hwang In-woo, a university student in his 20s, found himself standing in line for something called “Butter rice cakes” — yet another trending dessert he never intended to try.

Hwang said he has been eating his way through Korea’s latest food crazes largely at the urging of his girlfriend, who regularly discovers new items on social media and insists they try them together.

“I wouldn’t usually go out of my way to buy these if it weren’t for her,” he told The Korea Times. But as he found himself unintentionally following the trends, he began to notice they all shared something in common beyond just flavor.

“Most of them are chewy or soft, so you really don’t need much stress or strength to enjoy them,” he said. “The Dubai-style cookie was the most surprising. It looks soft, but then you get these crispy bits inside. That feeling really stayed with me.”

Pumpkin injeolmi rice cakes from Changeok, a Gwangju-based rice cake brand / Courtesy of Changeok

Hwang’s observation points to a quiet but decisive shift in Korea’s food culture, where texture — how something stretches, resists, collapses or melts in the mouth — has become a central driver of consumption.

Across Korea’s viral desserts, beverages and even seasonal seafood, what matters most is not just how something tastes, but how it feels.

Not just sweet

The change is most visible in the dessert scene, where a series of food items have built momentum around the same sensory appeal.

Dubai chewy cookies, which gained widespread attention earlier this year, helped set the tone. Made from a marshmallow-based dough filled with pistachio cream and kataifi pastry, the cookies offer a layered textural experience that moves between stickiness, elasticity and crunch.

Though the initial rush has begun to taper, the format has endured. Major bakery and cafe chains in Korea, including Paris Baguette and A Twosome Place, have since released their own variations, effectively turning “Dubai-style” into shorthand for that textural contrast rather than a specific recipe.

Butter rice cakes / Courtesy of Mond Cookie

The trend has continued to evolve. Butter rice cakes have recently surged in popularity, combining a light, crisp exterior with a dense, buttery and chewy interior.

Similarly, in Gwangju, the long-established rice cake brand Changeok has drawn renewed attention for its pumpkin “injeolmi,” a variation on traditional Korean rice cake that emphasizes weight, elasticity and a slow, yielding bite.

On social media, these foods are rarely presented as flavors. Instead, they are framed as moments — a hand pulling apart a sticky surface, a piece stretching just long enough to satisfy the viewer’s anticipation.

The visual language is repetitive but effective, translating tactile sensation into something that can be consumed through a screen.

The shift points to a deeper change in how younger consumers engage with food. In an ecosystem shaped by short-form video, eating no longer begins at the table, but on screen. Unlike taste, which cannot be fully transmitted digitally, texture lends itself to visual translation that can be instantly understood.

In this sense, texture functions as a bridge between the physical act of eating and its mediated, on-screen anticipation, turning food into something that can be experienced — at least in part — before it is ever consumed.

Starbucks customers wait to purchase the “Dubai chewy roll” at a store in Seoul’s Jongno District on Jan. 30. Yonhap

Chewy, airy and everything else

The same logic has begun to shape Korea’s beverage market.

Last month, Starbucks Korea introduced “Aerocano,” an Americano infused with microfoam through aeration technology. By injecting air into the drink, the company altered the coffee’s mouthfeel without significantly changing its flavor, creating a lighter, smoother drinking experience.

The response was immediate. The drink surpassed 1 million cups sold within a week, marking the fastest such milestone for an iced beverage in the company’s local history. Competitors including Paik’s Coffee and Compose Coffee quickly followed with similar foam-based variations, suggesting that texture has also become a new front in the nation’s highly competitive cafe sector.

Starbucks Korea launched the Aerocano on its menu at its stores across the country on Feb. 23. Courtesy of Starbucks Korea

The emphasis on texture extends beyond desserts and drinks into Korea’s seasonal food culture. As spring arrives, ingredients such as webfoot octopus, or “jjukkumi,” and ice goby sashimi have gained renewed visibility online, not only for their taste but for their distinctive textures.

Jjukkumi, harvested in Korea’s western and southern coasts between March and May, is prized for the roe packed inside its head, offering a granular, chewy sensation that has long been appreciated in Korean cuisine. Recently, short-form videos demonstrating how to cook the octopus for the “perfect” texture have circulated widely, turning a familiar ingredient into a viral experience.

Ice goby, a small translucent species available only briefly in Korea’s early spring, has followed a similar trajectory. Its delicate, almost gelatinous texture has made it a subject of curiosity-driven content, particularly in clips showing it being consumed fresh.

In each case, the food itself is not new. What has changed is the way it is framed and shared.

A diner cooks roe-filled webfoot octopus, or "jjukkumi," at a restaurant in Seoul during the spring season, when the delicacy is at its peak, in this undated photo. Korea Times file

Multisensory bites

Lee Eun-hui, a consumer science professor at Inha University, describes Korea’s snack and dessert market as one of the most dynamic in the world, driven by a rapid cycle of experimentation and adoption.

“Food is no longer just something you eat,” she said in a recent interview with a local media outlet. “They are becoming a form of content consumption, combined with experience and narrative.”

She added that younger consumers, particularly those in their 20s and 30s, are more willing to engage with trends they encounter online, accelerating both their rise and decline.

“The speed of these trends is extremely fast, and that speed itself is shaping the market,” she said.

Shoppers purchase Dubai-style chocolate croissants at an E-Mart store in Seoul on Jan. 30. Yonhap

Looking ahead, experts expect the trend to move beyond single-note sensations such as chewiness toward more complex compositions, where contrasting textures are layered within a single product.

For consumers, however, the appeal remains simple.

In a market saturated with options, texture offers something that can be instantly understood, visually shared and physically felt. It turns eating into an experience that begins on a screen and lingers in memory — not as a taste, but as a sensation.