Jimin and Jungkook at their military discharge, June 2025. By summer 2026, all seven are back. Photo: K-POPIT TV10, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
By the summer of 2026, all seven members of BTS are finally out of the military, back together, and working on their first full-group album since 2022. And their reunion lands right in the middle of the strangest food season in Korea: boknal, the three hottest days of the year, when the entire country lines up to eat boiling hot soup on purpose.
Here’s the short version: on boknal, Koreans fight the heat by eating hot, protein-heavy “stamina food” to recharge, and the most famous is samgyetang, ginseng chicken soup. What’s fun is that the dishes BTS members have talked about loving are, almost one for one, the exact foods Koreans reach for on these days. One of them was even photographed at a samgyetang restaurant on the hottest day of the year. But before we get to who eats what, let’s talk about why the group’s timing is so good.
“On the hottest day of the year, Korea eats boiling soup. On purpose.”
BTS in 2026: back from the military, back together
All seven, together again. Photo: The White House (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons
If you lost track of BTS during the hiatus, here’s where things stand. The members served their mandatory military service in waves, and by June 2025 the last of them were discharged: RM and V on 10 June, Jimin and Jungkook the day after, and Suga finishing his alternative service on 21 June. Then they did the thing fans had waited years for. They got back in a room together.
In a reunion video, the seven confirmed a 2026 comeback: a new album, built from each member’s own ideas, plus a world tour. It’s their first full-group release since the 2022 anthology Proof. They said they’d start writing over the summer, which means this boknal season is the first one in years with all of BTS home, off-duty, and eating like regular Koreans again. And that’s the fun angle here, because “eating like a regular Korean” in July means something very specific.
Wait, what is boknal? (Korea’s “fight heat with heat” days)
Samgyetang on a summer day. Yes, it’s boiling. That’s the point. Photo: KOREA.NET, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
Now, the part that confuses every first-time visitor. On the single hottest day of the Korean year, restaurants fill up with people ordering a soup so hot it’s still bubbling when it hits the table. Why would anyone do that?
The logic is called iyeol-chiyeol (이열치열), “fight heat with heat.” Eating something piping hot makes you sweat, and sweating cools you down. More importantly, summer heat drains your body, and a bowl of samgyetang loads you back up with protein and energy: a whole young chicken, stuffed with rice, simmered with ginseng and herbs. So boknal isn’t really about the temperature of the food. It’s about recovery. Koreans treat these three days like scheduled maintenance for the body.
Once you know that, a lot of “weird” Korean summer behavior suddenly makes sense, including why a global pop star would be spotted ducking into a chicken-soup restaurant on the hottest afternoon of the year. Which brings us to BTS.
What each BTS member reaches for in summer
Here’s the quick version before we dig in. These are the summer and stamina foods BTS members have actually mentioned or been seen with, and how neatly they map onto Korea’s boknal classics:
- Jimin — samgyetang (삼계탕), the ginseng chicken soup
- Jungkook — eel (장어), a classic summer stamina food
- Jin — naengmyeon (냉면), cold noodles for the heat
- Suga — galbi (갈비), grilled ribs
- V — kimchi jjigae (김치찌개), kimchi stew
Jimin: caught eating boknal exactly right
This is the one that started this whole article. On 11 July 2023, which was chobok that year, Jimin was spotted at a samgyetang restaurant, cheerfully signing an autograph for the staff. Think about the timing: the single first day of Korea’s hottest stretch, and there’s Jimin at a ginseng-chicken-soup place. You genuinely could not script a more perfectly Korean summer moment. Samgyetang is the boknal dish, and he went for it on the boknal day.
On chobok, samgyetang places fill up like this. Photo: KOREA.NET, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
Jungkook: eel, the other stamina classic
Grilled eel: the boknal food people forget, but Koreans swear by. Photo: Mar del Este, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
Jungkook has said he likes eel, and if samgyetang is the famous boknal food, grilled eel (jangeo) is the insider one. Ask older Koreans about summer stamina food and eel comes up almost as fast as chicken soup. It’s rich in protein and healthy fats, exactly the “recharge your battery” profile boknal is built around. So Jungkook’s taste isn’t a random preference; it’s textbook Korean summer eating.
Jin: the cold-noodle counterpoint
Naengmyeon: the other half of Korean summer, cold and sharp. Photo: chomjong, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Not every member fights heat with heat. Jin once said naengmyeon, cold buckwheat noodles in an icy, tangy broth, was a food he could happily eat every single day. And honestly, that’s the other, equally Korean way to survive summer: while half the country is sweating over samgyetang, the other half is slurping ice-cold noodles. Jin represents team cold-noodle, and no Korean would argue with him about it.
Suga & V: meat and stew, the everyday comfort
Galbi on the grill: Suga’s kind of dinner. Photo: ayustety, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Then there are the members who just want the good stuff year-round. Suga is a well-known lover of galbi, grilled short ribs, which is its own form of protein-loading if you think about it. V has talked plenty about kimchi jjigae, the humble kimchi stew that’s the ultimate Korean comfort food. Neither is strictly a boknal dish, but both fit the same instinct that drives the whole season: when you’re worn out, eat something hearty and Korean and feel human again.
Kimchi jjigae: V’s comfort bowl, and half of Korea’s. Photo: miyagawa, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Why this all fits together
Step back and the pattern is kind of lovely. The most famous group on the planet, freshly reunited, and when it comes to food they reach for the same things a Korean grandmother would push on you in July: chicken soup, eel, cold noodles, grilled meat, kimchi stew. No superfood powders, no influencer diets. Just the food of a Korean summer.
That’s the quiet reason K-pop fans keep tripping over Korean food culture. You come for the group, and you leave knowing what boknal is, and why a bubbling pot of samgyetang is basically a national love language. The next hot day you’re in Seoul, do the very Korean thing. Find a samgyetang place, order the soup that’s far too hot for the weather, and sweat it out like an idol on chobok.
A few things people keep asking about BTS and boknal
What is boknal?
Boknal (sambok) is the three hottest days of the Korean summer: chobok, jungbok and malbok, from roughly mid-July to mid-August. Koreans eat hot stamina food, above all samgyetang, to recover energy lost to the heat.
Did Jimin really eat samgyetang on boknal?
He was photographed at a samgyetang restaurant on 11 July 2023, which was chobok that year, signing an autograph for staff. It’s about as on-theme as a summer sighting gets.
Why eat hot soup in hot weather?
It’s the “fight heat with heat” idea (iyeol-chiyeol). Hot soup makes you sweat and cool down, while the chicken, ginseng and rice restore protein and energy. Recovery over temperature.
Is BTS really back in 2026?
Yes. All seven finished military service by June 2025 and announced a 2026 full-group comeback with a new album and world tour, their first full release since 2022.
Keep going down the rabbit hole
If the boknal thing grabbed you, we wrote a whole guide to what boknal is and why Koreans eat the way they do on the hottest days, and a deep dive on samgyetang, the ginseng chicken soup at the center of it all. And if you want the full BTS menu beyond summer, here’s what BTS actually eats in real life, member by member.
Come for the group. Stay for the soup.