Why a Netflix Rom-Com Is Named After Taffy

Our Sticky Love arrived on Netflix on August 7 as a 12-episode romantic comedy directed by Kim Jang-han and written by Mo Ji-hye. Ha Young plays Go Eun-sae, an ambitious prosecutor who loses her memory while tracking a crime syndicate. She wakes in a small clinic in Yeot Village, a fictional countryside town where much of the community makes taffy. At her bedside is Jang Tae-ha, a boxing coach played by Jung Hae-in, who introduces himself as her boyfriend.

The show opened at No. 5 on Netflix's weekly non-English TV chart, then climbed to No. 1 for the week of August 10 to 16 with 7.5 million views. That week it reached the top 10 in 68 countries, including South Korea, Brazil, Indonesia and Singapore. It shared the chart with other Korean series, among them the action drama Agent Kim Reactivated.

Viewers outside Korea mostly meet the English title, which smooths over a joke. The Korean title, Ireon Yeot Gateun Sarang, translates literally as "this love is like yeot." Yeot is the traditional grain taffy that gives the village its name. In casual speech, though, calling something "yeot-like" is a blunt way of saying it is rotten or maddening. The title is both sweet and cheeky, and it fits a story that moves from rom-com into melodrama, thriller and noir before returning to romance.

Ahead of the premiere, the director compared the series to the candy itself: yeot changes flavor and form depending on what goes into it. Jung Hae-in described the romance as sweet, sticky and charming. The taffy works as a running metaphor for two people who, once tangled together, are very hard to pull apart.

Grain, Malt, and Patience: How Yeot Is Made

Yeot belongs to hangwa, Korea's family of traditional confections. The method comes before any flavor. Cooked grain is mixed with yeotgireum, barley that has been sprouted and dried into malt, and kept warm so the enzymes in the malt turn starch into sugar. The sweet liquid is strained and then simmered for hours in a large iron pot called a sot. No refined sugar is needed. The sweetness comes from the grain.

How long it cooks decides what it becomes. A shorter boil gives jocheong, a glossy amber grain syrup still used in Korean kitchens for glazes, braises and traditional sweets. Keep boiling and the syrup thickens into a mass that sets firm as it cools. Pulled and folded while still warm, that brown mass takes in air and turns pale, almost white, with a light, faintly crisp bite. Left unpulled, it hardens into glassy amber pieces.

Rice is the classic base, but regional kitchens use whatever grows nearby. Pumpkin yeot, hobak-yeot, is closely linked to Ulleungdo island. Sesame-coated kkae-yeot is sold at markets across the country. Sangju, famous for dried persimmons, makes a persimmon version. Jeju Island keeps some of the most unusual recipes, including taffies simmered with pheasant or chicken, which began as nourishing winter foods rather than candy.

Yeot also works as glue. Warm syrup binds puffed rice, nuts or seeds into yeot-gangjeong, the crunchy bars sold in markets and gift boxes. Many first-time visitors eat yeot this way without realizing it.

Sticky Luck: Yeot at Exams and Weddings

Every autumn, yeot quietly returns to Korean shop counters. The Korean verb butda means "to stick," and it is also the everyday word for passing a test. A piece of yeot given before an exam is a wish that the student will stick, meaning pass. Before the Suneung, the national college entrance exam held every November, sales of sticky treats rise as parents, teachers and friends buy them for test-takers.

The custom is old. Yeot is thought to have reached the peninsula during the Goryeo era, and giving it to candidates for the gwageo, the civil service exams of the Joseon dynasty, dates back at least several centuries. Weddings had their own version. The bride's family traditionally sent yeot to the groom's household as a wish that the new couple, and the two families, would stay firmly stuck together. As an old joke has it, a mouthful of chewy taffy also kept a mother-in-law too busy to nag.

The same stickiness gives the word its sharper side. "I ate yeot" means you have been let down or outplayed, and telling someone to go eat yeot is a plain insult. One widely told story traces the insult to a 1964 middle-school entrance exam, when a disputed question about how yeot is made set off a public argument. Whatever the exact origin, the double meaning is so familiar that a drama could build its title on it.

Street culture added one more image. For much of the twentieth century, yeotjangsu, or taffy sellers, pushed carts through neighborhoods clacking large blunt scissors to announce themselves, then cut pieces to order. The size of a piece depended on the seller's mood, which gave Korean the idiom yeotjangsu maeum-daero, "as the taffy seller pleases," for anything decided on a whim.

Where to Taste Yeot and See the Drama's Countryside

Yeot Village's Gujin-gun is fictional, but the drama was filmed in real places. According to production details, principal photography began in April 2025 around Dangjin in South Chungcheong Province. Locations include Goljeongji Pond in Myeoncheon, a Joseon-era pond associated with the scholar Park Ji-won from his time as the county's magistrate, the Sunseong cherry blossom road, and the Ami Art Museum, a gallery set inside a converted country schoolhouse. The three are close enough to see in one unhurried day, and Dangjin is roughly 90 minutes by road from Seoul. If you like planning trips around screen locations, our guide to K-drama filming locations in Korea covers more sets worth a detour.

To taste yeot made the old way, the best-known destination is Changpyeong's Samjinae Village in Damyang, South Jeolla Province. In 2007 it became the first place in Korea designated a Slow City. Local households there still make rice yeot and hangwa by hand, and visitors can join hands-on sweet-making programs. Check the village's current schedule before you go, because sessions vary by season.

Closer to Seoul, yeot-gangjeong, sesame yeot and pumpkin taffy are regular finds at Seoul's traditional markets and at hangwa shops in neighborhoods such as Insadong. Boxed yeot also makes an easy gift to take home, because it keeps well and packs flat. If you are traveling in November, a small bag of yeot is a friendly gift for any Korean student you meet. They will understand the message right away.