Why Is Korean Kimchi Popular Worldwide as Homemade Kimchi Traditions Change?

As Kimchi Goes Global, Korea’s Home-Kimchi Tradition Is Changing

Lately, I have been completely absorbed in my blog.

Every time I finish one post, another question comes to mind. I start looking for an answer, and before I know it, I am already working on the next story.

Then yesterday, I opened my refrigerator and realized something.

There was hardly anything to eat.

Well, to be precise, there was one thing.

Aged kimchi I had made last winter.

My blog had grown to more than 100 posts, while my refrigerator had somehow been reduced to last winter’s kimchi.

No matter how enjoyable writing may be, one still has to eat.

So I went grocery shopping.

I came home with yeolmu, young summer radish, and eolgari, tender young napa cabbage.

But of course, I spent the daytime working on my blog again. By the time I finally turned my attention to the vegetables, it was already night.

I trimmed them, washed them, salted them, prepared the seasoning, and mixed everything together by hand.

Before long, I had a container full of fresh yeolmu-eolgari kimchi.

A batch of kimchi, made late at night with a little chopping, mixing, and determination.

   ▲ Homemade yeolmu-eolgari kimchi, prepared late at night | Photo by the author

But the story did not end there.

There were quite a few green leaves left after trimming the vegetables, so I boiled them rather than throwing them away.

Some went into a pot of soup with doenjang, Korea’s traditional fermented soybean paste. The rest became a seasoned vegetable side dish.

The doenjang was homemade. I make my own every year.

I mixed the cooked greens with well-aged doenjang, garlic, red pepper flakes, ground sesame seeds, sesame oil, and finely chopped hot green chili.

Then I tasted a bite.

Ah....

This was not the sort of thing that would end with one bowl of rice. Haha.

So I brought out the rice.

I finished one bowl.

I still wanted a little more.

So I helped myself to another half scoop.

And yes, this was in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately, there is no photograph of that dish. By the time it occurred to me that I should take one, it had already disappeared along with a bowl and a half of rice.

   ▲ Doenjang soup made with the green leaves left after trimming the yeolmu and eolgari | Photo by the author

Looking at the meal afterward, I found something rather interesting.

The yeolmu and eolgari had become kimchi. The remaining greens had met doenjang and become soup and a seasoned side dish.

Kimchi is fermented food. So is doenjang.

I had simply been trying to put something on the table. Yet without giving it much thought, my kitchen that night had become a small continuation of Korea’s centuries-old fermentation culture.

And that led me to another question.

Kimchi is becoming increasingly popular around the world. But what is happening to the tradition of making it at home in Korea?

1. Kimchi Really Is Becoming a Global Food

We often hear that kimchi has become popular around the world.

When I looked at the numbers, however, I realized that this was more than a vague impression.

According to South Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, kimchi exports in 2025 were worth roughly $164 million, or more than 220 billion Korean won, depending on the exchange rate.

In the first half of 2026 alone, exports reached $86 million, approximately 115 billion won.

Exports to North America accounted for about $30.6 million, or roughly 41 billion won—close to 40 percent of Korea’s total kimchi exports during that period.

The food that sat so naturally at one corner of the table throughout my childhood is now crossing oceans and finding a place on tables around the world.

That is wonderful to see.

And yet, it made me look in another direction.

As more people around the world discover kimchi, what is happening in the Korean kitchens where it has long been made?

2. Just How Many Things Did Koreans Turn Into Kimchi?

Outside Korea, the word kimchi often brings to mind one familiar image: napa cabbage covered in a vivid red seasoning.

But once I began thinking about the kimchi Koreans have actually eaten, the picture became much larger.

Kimchi has always been remarkably free.

We make it with garlic chives. We make it with sweet-potato stems. I recently wrote on this blog about making sweet-potato-stem kimchi myself.

There is even persimmon kimchi.

And in Korea’s Gyeongsang region, there is kimchi made from soybean leaves.

Even soybean leaves, however, are not eaten in just one way.

When soybean plants are vigorously growing, their tender young leaves can be made into a refreshing water kimchi.

But that is not the end of the story.

Take three or four well-fermented green soybean leaves and spread them across the palm of your hand. Place a spoonful of rice on top. Then add a little gangdoenjang—a thick, richly seasoned soybean paste bubbling away in an earthenware pot—or a spoonful of well-seasoned salted seafood.

Fold the leaves around the rice and take a bite.

Oh....

This is one of those flavors that is difficult to explain to anyone who has never tasted it.

One bowl of rice is rarely enough.

You may find yourself wanting an entire basinful. ^^

Then autumn arrives, and the soybean leaves turn yellow with the season.

The story changes again.

Those leaves were not simply discarded.

Each yellow autumn leaf was picked by hand and left in brine for about two months. Once thoroughly cured, the leaves were boiled until tender.

Then came kimjang season—the traditional time of year when Korean households prepare kimchi for the winter.

The soybean leaves were layered one by one with the rich seasoning prepared for kimjang. That seasoning is what turns them into truly delicious autumn soybean-leaf kimchi.

After weeks in salt, followed by boiling and finally a generous coating of kimjang seasoning, one of those leaves laid across a spoonful of warm rice....

Ah, that flavor is difficult to put into words.

Once you come to love it, it is not easy to escape. Haha.

The more I thought about this, the more fascinating it became.

Tender young leaves, summer stems, even leaves that had turned yellow in autumn—very little was simply passed by.

People looked at whatever the season had produced and wondered, “How can we make this delicious?”

Salt, time, and seasoning did the rest, transforming another ordinary ingredient into kimchi.

Kimchi, then, was never merely the name of a single dish.

It was a way of preserving the seasons, keeping the flavors of each region alive, and transforming ordinary ingredients through the wisdom of everyday life.

Perhaps the kimchi the world is discovering today is only a small part of the kimchi culture Korea has developed over generations.

3. Fermentation Was Everywhere on the Korean Table

Thinking about kimchi made me notice something else.

Fermentation runs remarkably deep through Korean food.

There is kimchi, of course, but also doenjang (fermented soybean paste), soy sauce, gochujang (fermented red pepper paste), salted seafood, vinegar, makgeolli (traditional rice wine), and more.

I make doenjang and soy sauce at home every year.

I have done it for so long that I rarely stop to think about how extraordinary the process actually is.

Soybeans become meju, blocks of fermented soybeans. The meju then spends a long time in brine, and through that slow process, doenjang and soy sauce emerge.

Kimchi is much the same.

Kimchi made today does not taste the same several days later.

No one opens the container in the middle of the night to add some mysterious new ingredient. Yet its aroma and flavor continue to change.

Fermentation is quietly at work.

Long before people could explain microorganisms scientifically, Koreans were already using salt, temperature, and time to preserve food and create new flavors.

Once I began looking at kimchi this way, I saw it differently.

We cannot stop the seasons from passing.

But we can hold on to something of their flavor.

Vegetables harvested in their season were salted, seasoned, and placed in earthenware jars. As time passed, fermentation transformed their flavor and aroma.

The season moved on.

Its taste remained on the table.

That makes me think again about the kitchens and jangdokdae—the terraces of earthenware fermentation jars—of older Korean homes.

They were more than places for cooking and storing food.

Fire and water, salt and time, together with microorganisms invisible to the human eye, were quietly creating the flavors of Korean food.

   ▲ An old Korean kitchen and jangdokdae, where fermented foods slowly developed their flavor | AI-generated image

4. So What Is Happening to Korea’s Home-Kimchi Culture?

At first, I wondered whether most Koreans had simply begun buying kimchi instead of making it.

The data told a more complicated story.

In a 2024 survey of 550 households by the Korea Rural Economic Institute, 68.1 percent said they planned to make kimchi themselves, up from 63.3 percent the previous year.

The most common reason was especially interesting: 53 percent said they made their own kimchi because they could adjust it to suit their family’s preferred taste.

That, to me, is one of the great pleasures of homemade kimchi.

But other figures reveal a change.

For a four-person household, the planned amount of napa cabbage for kimjang declined from 21.9 heads in 2020 to 19.9 in 2023, 18.5 in 2024, and 18.3 in 2025.

In the 2025 survey, 49 percent of those planning to reduce the amount they made said their household simply ate less kimchi. Another 18.4 percent cited the convenience of buying commercially prepared kimchi.

There was another revealing figure: 58.9 percent planned to use pre-salted cabbage rather than salt the cabbage themselves, largely because the salting process is labor-intensive.

So I do not think it would be fair to say that Koreans have simply stopped making kimchi at home.

Something subtler is happening.

The culture of homemade kimchi is changing its shape.

Households may make smaller quantities. They may buy pre-salted cabbage. They may supplement homemade kimchi with store-bought varieties when convenient.

Perhaps this change is only natural.

Families are smaller. Life is busy. Delicious kimchi can now arrive at the front door with a few taps on a screen.

I am hardly in a position to criticize anyone. I was so absorbed in my blog that I did not notice how bare my own refrigerator had become. Haha.

Still, I cannot help feeling a little wistful.

5. As Kimchi Travels the World, I Hope It Remains at Home

It is wonderful to see people around the world discovering and enjoying kimchi.

Yet the more celebrated kimchi becomes abroad, the more I find myself looking back toward the Korean home kitchen.

Sharing kimchi with the world matters.

But I cannot help feeling a little wistful at the thought that making kimchi at home might one day become something unusual in Korea itself.

That does not mean every household needs to pile up dozens of cabbages and spend the winter making enormous batches of kimjang.

A single bunch of yeolmu is enough.

A few cucumbers can become oi-sobagi, stuffed cucumber kimchi. One radish can become kkakdugi, cubed radish kimchi.

Season it to your own taste.

Take a bite.

“Perhaps it needs a little more salt.”

Add some.

Taste it again.

“Yes. That’s it.”

Then put it away to ferment.

That small process of discovering the flavor you like is part of what homemade kimchi means.

And sometimes someone beside you is watching.

One day, that person may join you in mixing the seasoning.

In that quiet way, flavors and memories pass from one person to another.

6. What Did I Really Make Last Night?

Yesterday, I thought I was simply making something to eat.

I had no grand intention of preserving Korean tradition.

Late at night, I washed and salted yeolmu and eolgari, mixed them with seasoning, and filled one container with kimchi.

I made doenjang soup with the remaining greens and seasoned some of them as a side dish.

Then, in the middle of the night, I ate a bowl of rice—and went back for another half scoop.

That was all.

But today, looking at that container of kimchi, I see it a little differently.

Kimchi is becoming more famous around the world.

Yet the place where it was made, eaten, changed, and passed down for generations was never somewhere grand.

It was the kitchens of ordinary people.

I hope that as more people around the world come to enjoy kimchi, the sound of kimchi being made will continue to be heard in Korean homes as well.

There is no need to make a great quantity.

Even a single container, made to suit your own taste, can be a genuine pleasure.

Last night, I thought I had simply made something to eat.

Today, I see it differently.

I think that, in my own kitchen, I was quietly carrying forward a food culture that has been passed down through generations.

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