Lately, it feels like every café in Korea has at least one ube menu item. From ube lattes to smoothies and even desserts, the purple color is suddenly everywhere on Instagram and TikTok.

If you don’t know what ube is, it’s a purple yam originally popular in the Philippines. The taste is slightly sweet, nutty, and creamy, so it works really well in drinks. A lot of people say it tastes similar to sweet potato but softer and more dessert-like.

What’s interesting is that Korean cafés are mixing ube with different styles:

• iced ube latte
• ube cream coffee
• ube milkshake
• ube matcha combinations
• even ube croffles and cakes

Honestly, the visual is probably one of the biggest reasons it became trendy. The pastel purple color looks really pretty in photos, especially in minimal Korean cafés.

I tried an ube latte recently and expected it to be super sweet, but it was actually pretty balanced. The earthy flavor with milk was surprisingly good. I can see why people are obsessed with it lately.