Seoul Coffee Edition

Matt Rodbard (MR) is the founding editor in chief of TASTE and the author of Food IQ and Koreatown: A Cookbook. He’s also the host of the TASTE Podcast, a feed of lively conversations about food and culture.

Matt here. Like Amber Finlay, I was recently in Seoul for work—I was traveling around Korea for a couple weeks, reporting and shooting a new book, Koreaworld, which I will release with Clarkson Potter in 2024. This was my sixth trip to Korea, and I’m always struck by how quickly food and drink trends tend to latch on—and they turn over just as quickly. Just a decade ago, you couldn’t find a quality sourdough miche or pain au chocolat anywhere (at least as an outsider). Today, the streets around Seongsu or Apgujeong are perfumed by the smells of toasted pastry butter, and you are as likely to stumble upon a decent kouign-amann as you are a tray of kimbap. But it’s coffee—house-roasted, properly extracted, and expertly served—that Korea has gone mad for. 

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In Seoul, a city of nearly ten million, there’s a third-wave-looking shop or roaster café around basically every corner, and the third-wave coffee shop “starter kit” is being followed to a T—the right Mahlkönig grinder, V60 drip station, and La Marzocco espresso machine can be spotted in most of these places. And echoing Amber’s take on Seoul retail, the innovation of space and layout is beyond extra—the playful and adventurous design of these cafés left me standing in the doorway and staring, drawn to buying yet another cortado or iced Einspänner. 

Is the coffee “good” in Seoul? Jeez, it’s hard to say. It’s all over the board, similar a bit to Tokyo and Paris—two emerging coffee cities. During my recent trip, some house-roasted coffees were done with the greatest care (the lightest touch), and the perfectly pulled espressos were sourced from a single-origin in Guatemala or Guji. Other times, the most stunning Brutalist-inspired “aesthetic” shop served something far less satisfying. But overall, and from my small sample size, the coffee scene in Seoul is one of the most swiftly advancing in the world.

Why is this interesting?

Here are a few of the places that caught my eye on this trip. Shouts to two coffee professionals who have guided me over the years: Matthew Jung-Quillen (SEY, Mavam Espresso) and Henry Park (Fritz Coffee Company). They are great follows.

Fritz Coffee Company

By all accounts one of Korea’s most well-regarded brands, Fritz Coffee Company was launched in 2014. You can buy bags with the iconic fur seal imagery and bold Hangul typeface at great coffee retail places like Dayglow and Drip in the United States. I’ve visited the Dohwa location in Seoul many times and sipped amazing African pourovers in the walled courtyard. (They will sell you a ₩25,000 (around $20) geisha coffee as well). The bakery and merch game is extremely strong too. A Fritz cupping spoon, glass, or calendar is a must for all coffee heads. 

Mesh Coffee

Mesh is another establishment coffee company that’s been operating since 2015. I visited the tiny street-level shop in Seoul Forest several times during my recent visit, and the shop is as serious as it gets, selling auction-lot coffees in 100g bags and hand-brewing V60s. There are only a few seats inside, but you can sit on an available Club-Mate crate on the street. Like many cafés in Seoul, the menu is broken down into espresso (blends and single-origins), hand-brew, and “white”—local parlance for the milk-based espresso drinks we all know and love. I picked up several of the cute hand-stamped bags to bring home for friends. Once back in the United States, I brewed it on Chemex (16:1 if you are asking), and the roasting was extremely light—good but light. Bill Withers, on vinyl, was constantly playing during my three visits too. Nice.

CO:LUMN

I’ve found myself in Seongsu a lot over the past couple years, and it seems coffee has become one of the neighborhood’s draws—most of my remaining spots are all located within a short walk of one another. CO:LUMN, housed in a former rice mill and warehouse, is a conceptual gallery, bakery, and roaster, and it’s massive, with several working wood-burning stoves and rotating large-format art installations, all revealed only after walking through large wooden doors. The coffee is really interesting, sourced primarily from top-tier Ethiopian farm Gesha Village (who I visited in Addis Ababa for a story in TASTE). I love their coffees, and I was happy to find several available—all roasted with a very light touch. Pourovers run ₩15,000 (about $12). Don’t sleep on the homemade strawberry milk either. Also, I took Amber’s advice and checked out the Ader Error flagship store down the street. Whoa! Next-level experiential retail. And they were so nice! 

Lowkey

Another establishment roaster, Lowkey was founded in 2010, and on my visit, I found them using this amazing vintage Japanese coffeeware for pourovers. Like the great Fuglen in Tokyo, the café’s design approach here is mid-century Scandinavian—with the best triangular tables I’ve seen. The house-roasted coffee is very good, and I want to say this: customers working on laptops on those tables had a cool way with the world that weekday afternoon.

Tongue Planet 

I just have to give respect to this café located above the Ader Error store. The coffee is really good. The cakes, though—whoa. 

Matt Cafe

I tried to buy a coffee mug from Matt Cafe, the shop located on the ground floor of the La Marzocco Seoul headquarters and training studio in Gangnam. I asked the barista if I could purchase the mug. They asked if I was “friends with Matt,” and, deciding not to fib, I said no, but I confirmed that I, too, was a Matt. No dice. The point is, the cold espresso tonic is bonkers good. Outrageously delicious. The best cold coffee drink I’ve had in a long time. I’m still trying to re-create it for a recipe in Koreaworld. Very cold tonic, two shots of espresso, orange, and rosemary.  

Club Espresso

Up a steep hill or three in the semi-secluded and incredible Buam-dong neighborhood is the first really serious café I ever visited in Korea. Club Espresso was founded in 1990 and has been roasting high-quality coffee longer than American pioneers Intelligentsia, Stumptown, and Blue Bottle. In the beginning, espresso was the passion, but the operation has expanded a great deal to serve some of the city’s more creative cold coffee drinks—with plays on the affogato and the Iced Chocolano (chocolate, espresso, whipped cream).  

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Matt (MR)

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