Love at First Sip: A History of Coffee in Korea | 25, Issue 16
My first taste of coffee was a revelation. I was a little girl sitting at the kitchen table with my siblings, as my mom played cards with her friends. They were so busy laughing and gossiping that they didn’t notice my sneaking a taste of that milky brown liquid—sweet, aromatic, forbidden, delicious.
CECILIA HAE-JIN LEE traces the history of coffee in Korea.
That was in the 1970s in Korea when I developed a taste for the magical bean. Back then, all we had was instant coffee sold in glass jars that we mixed with powdered creamer and a bit of sugar. Maybe it was the lipstick-stained porcelain edge of the cup that drew me in; maybe it was the aroma beckoning me to try it, like the forbidden fruit hanging in Eden. It was love at first sip. That combination of bitter and sweet, milky and bold. I had tasted original sin and there was no going back for me.
Korea’s Coffee Origin Story
According to historical lore, coffee in Korea doesn’t go as far back as Adam and Eve, but to King Gojong (1852–1919). In 1896, King Gojong fled Gyeongbokgung, after months of aggression from Japan and the assassination of Queen Min (Empress Myeongseong). He and his son fled to the Russian diplomatic ministry, and they governed for about a year from the Russian embassy. It was there that King Gojong developed his taste for coffee.
Though King Gojong is reported to have been the first ever Korean to taste coffee, this isn’t entirely true. When Korea was still practicing its isolationist policies (that’s why it was called the “Hermit Kingdom” for so long), foreign warships occasionally visited the coastal towns. Korean officials were invited aboard for a tour and refreshments. Although alcohol was the beverage of choice, coffee was served as well.
There are records of foreign guests being served coffee when visiting the Korean royal palace in the mid-1880s, before Japan’s attempted royal coup, that led Emperor Gojong to his Russian friends and his first taste of the dark brew.
Upon his return to Deoksugung, one of the smaller palaces, Gojong’s love of coffee was cemented. He even built a special building for drinking it, called Jeonggwang-heon, which still sits on the site of Deoksugung. Reportedly, it was Korea’s first café, just for the king and his guests.
Even after the Japanese Occupation, when King Gojong was confined to the royal palace of Changdeokgung, coffee remained his favorite beverage. For the first several years of its introduction in Korea, coffee was still an expensive drink. Many of Korea’s elite and wealthy—along with royals, politicians, businesspeople, artists, and intellectuals—also fell in love with coffee. It symbolized Western culture for them and thus became a status symbol.
When coffee was initially introduced to Korea, people didn’t know how to drink it. Because it was bitter, people drank it like they were drinking hard liquor. It was served in small glasses and downed in one shot.
Dabangs—Korea’s Original Cafés
Coffee was originally served in a “dabang,” which means tearoom (da = tea, bang = room). Originally, a dabang was a place where tea, coffee, and other non-alcoholic beverages were served. Emerging during the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945) around 1923, the very first dabang was opened in the Sontag Hotel by Antoinette Sontag, with the support of King Gojong. Sontag, the German sister-in-law of the Russian consul general at the time, opened the dabang to serve foreign diplomats.
Other dabangs popped up around Seoul, most concentrated around the Myeongdong and Jongno areas, as the cultural elite became more enamored of European and Western culture. Similar to the Parisienne café scene, these early dabang were gathering places for Korean artists, writers, politicians, and intellectuals. There were performances, poetry readings, and celebrations of book publications. Until the 1950s, these local dabang were places for the wealthy to gather and enjoy emerging Korean art.
These salons—early prototypes of Korea’s later coffee shops—offered hot coffee served by beautiful ladies. They became popular among both Korean and international businessmen who used the gatherings for networking. At that time, coffee was an import much too expensive for the common people.
At the end of World War II, imports of sugar and coffee were blocked as a result of the Pacific War in 1941. The traditional- style dabang largely disappeared and transformed into more commercial cafés.
The Korean War then broke out in 1950, and American soldiers brought instant coffee among their provisions for survivors of the war. Immediately after the armistice in 1953, the country was too busy rebuilding itself to care about fancy coffee shops.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Korean coffee culture saw a renaissance. The dabang was no longer just for the elite and artists; anyone could come and have a cup of coffee with friends and family. Korea’s coffee houses were popular, in part because there were very few places for people to go to socialize. Dabangs became places for business meetings, blind dates for college students, and discussions about art, and they offered a place to rest for the middle-aged.
It was during this post-war period of rebuilding that my parents met in Seoul. My mom was a dabang “lady” (as they used to call the female servers). My dad delivered ice.
The dabang was the center of Korean social culture at that time. There were “yaksok dabangs” for making appointments or dates, “music dabangs” in which DJs played the latest vinyl records in lieu of live entertainment, and even dabangs that were fronts for prostitution.
These began to disappear as takeout culture became increasingly popular and coffee vending machines gradually replaced the dabang ladies. Adding to the decline were new American-style cafés that sold espresso-based coffees, springing up first in Seoul before spreading across the peninsula.
Korean’s Love of Instant Coffee
During the time dabangs were popular, the coffee served was instant coffee stirred in hot water, with added powdered cream and sugar. Each customer had slightly different preferences, so they would tell the servers their preferred cream and sugar ratio in their coffee.
In 1976, Dongsuh Foods (makers of the popular brand Maxim), under the license of Maxwell House, introduced the first Korean 3-in-1 instant coffee mix that contained powdered coffee, sugar, and powdered cream in a single-serve packet. It was a revolutionary product that brought coffee to every home, office, and school in South Korea. It soon became more a necessity than a luxury: Koreans began drinking coffee after each meal, every day.
By the end of the decade, South Korea was the largest consumer of instant coffee in the world. It was reported that about 75 percent of the Korean public was drinking instant coffee on a regular basis. Even in 2018, about 36 percent of South Koreans said they drank instant coffee at least once a day.
While instant coffee still dominates home markets, the café experience has led to an increase in consumption of higher quality coffees. Koreans view instant coffee mixes as a daily necessity, while brewed coffee is a luxury to enjoy once or twice a week with friends or business associates.
Modern Korean Cafés
By the 1980s, modern and themed cafés began popping up all around Seoul. They sold many different kinds of coffee, teas, sodas, and other beverages. For the first time in Korea’s history, espresso-type coffee beverages were also available. Cafés that roasted their own beans began to appear, and people began to drink higher quality coffee that was both roasted and brewed on-site.
I remember visiting Korea in the mid- 1980s for the first time since my family had immigrated to the US. Having grown up with home-mixed instant coffees, I was shocked by the newly emerging coffee scene; it was amazing. Stepping into a café was an escape from the noisy and crowded streets of the city, and each café was unique in its décor and ambiance. The menu felt largely overpriced after my time in the US, with a limited selection of coffees, sometimes Korean traditional beverages, and pastries or Korean desserts. You weren’t paying for the coffee, though; you were paying for the experience.
Full-scale café growth wasn’t seen until after 1989, when Korea had an economic boom. People—including the emerging middle class—had enough disposable income to enable them to travel. Koreans began experiencing different coffees from around the world, but the coffee culture they created at home was—and still is!—unique.
Beyond the emphasis on specialty beans and roasting processes, coffee drinkers care a lot about the atmosphere in which they drink their coffee. Koreans, like other people, love to meet and hang out with friends, have a first date, or conduct business meetings over a brew, but in a beautiful space.
Korea’s coffee culture shifted again in 1999, when the first Starbucks in Korea opened in front of Ewha Womans University. Retail giant Shinsegae introduced the US-based brand to Korea with the first location, and the culture of takeout espresso-based coffees took off. It also shifted Korean café culture from a socially engaging space to encompass Western ideas of cafés. Students now study there, stop by for a quick drink, or take a cappuccino to go.
Other foreign brands, like Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, moved in to capture some of the quickly expanding market. Homegrown Korean brands, like Hollys Coffee, Tom N Toms, A Twosome Place, and Ediya, quickly followed. Starbucks grew at a meteoric pace, with over 1,000 stores in Korea, which brought in KR₩773.9 billion in sales in 2015.
Since then, South Koreans have been among the fastest growing consumers of coffee in the world, with cafés popping up on nearly every corner of their capital city. In 2005, there were around 800 coffee shops in Seoul; in 2011, there were 12,381; and there were nearly 15,000 in 2019.
With a café every 100 meters, it’s a very competitive market. It’s difficult for café owners to capture the fickle tastes of South Koreans, especially Seoulites, who are trend followers, constantly chasing the latest food and drink craze. But for the average café-goer, it’s a field day: the choice of cafés is dizzying.
Korean Cafés Now
South Korea’s café culture has created aesthetically unique spaces. Some are themed (like a Hello Kitty café, or one based on Mozart); some are experientially unique (like cafés where you can drink a hot brew among any number of animals—cats, dogs, racoons, meerkats, and arctic foxes; or one in which you can get a pedicure done by dead-skin-eating “Doctor Fish”). They may specialize in particular desserts (like layered crepe cakes colored to look like a rainbow) or have unique decorations (where the latte art is made to look like poop and your coffee is served in miniature toilets).
The idea of escapism is intrinsic to Korean café culture. When I lived in Seoul in the early 1990s, I understood why. I was living in a multi-generational apartment with my great-aunt, my aunts and uncles, and my young cousins. The city was densely populated, noisy, and crowded 24 hours a day. Even at 3 o’clock in the morning, it was difficult for a person to be alone. The cafés were my saving grace, where I could sit and write and be alone with my own quiet thoughts. I could meet friends for private conversation and enjoy a caffeinated beverage in a beautiful space.
We now have about 20,000 cafés in Korea, and almost all of them have no fewer than 4 tables with chairs.
The average cost of a cup of coffee is about KR₩4,000, but it’s usually closer to KR₩7,000—so you may expect coffee professionals to see a nice income. However, competition and high rents, especially given the spectacular spaces they have to create, are swallowing profits.
The global economic recession isn’t helping either. People don’t want to give up the happiness of drinking coffee, but it has made them choose cheaper coffee. Nearly all the cafés in Korea are now selling non-coffee items to stay afloat.
The Future of Coffee in Korea
What does the future of coffee in Korea look like? It’s hard to say.
Data show that the average Korean drinks about 300 cups of coffee per year. Instant coffee mix products account for about 25 percent of total sales, while purchases in coffee shops account for about 30 percent. Experts say they’ve continued to grow year over year. As the brewed coffee industry grows, conglomerates such as Lotte, Hanwha, and Nescafé are trying to get their share of the Korean coffee market. Experts say an increasing number of consumers have preferred brewed coffee over instant as time goes on.
Nestlé launched its Nespresso line in South Korea in 2007, trying to capture the domestic market. Other foreign brands, like Miele, soon jumped in. And it wasn’t long before Korean companies, like Maeil and Namyang Dairy Products, tried to capture the capsule market, as well.
Although the capsule coffee maker usage has grown since then, I’m not sure it can compete with the ease and economy of instant coffee packets that are prevalent in the culture. Koreans are habituated to cheap and easy coffee at home, and drinking coffee outside in cafés is still a largely social endeavor—not really about the coffee.
When I was last in Korea in the late 2010s, I visited a coffee farm in the countryside in the southern area of the peninsula. It was a bit of a trek to get there in a remote part of the town. But when I arrived, I was surprised by how crowded it was. There were young people checking out the roasters, Buddhist monks sipping coffee, and businesspeople looking at the coffee berries. High quality, single-origin coffees brewed by professionally trained baristas had become extremely popular.
Rho Jinyi, owner of Jeju Coffee Farm, and a handful of other farmers are trying their hand at growing the finicky bean in Korea. Only time will tell if the Jeju Island coffee cultivation will succeed and how the beans will taste. There are no commercial coffee cultivators in Korea, but projected climate change may give Jeju-do the perfect growing conditions for coffee beans in a few decades—a potential boon for the country’s increasing consumption.
While it’s unlikely that Seoul will continue to see continued coffee shop growth in quite the same way as seen in the past three decades, Korea’s wonderfully quirky café culture and its love of coffee is here to stay. ◇
CECILIA HAE-JIN LEE is a James Beard Award-nominated writer, artist, photographer, chef, and TV/film producer.
A Sweet, Easy Mix
Although Dongsuh’s brands still dominate about 80 percent of the domestic market, there are currently dozens of brands of pre-mixed instant coffee available in grocery stores. Every public building has hot water dispensers, making instant coffee easily accessible to everyone.
Significantly cheaper than their coffee shop alternatives—an advantage alongside their ease of use—the instant coffee mixes are sold in the stores in bulk (in packs of 100). And at less than
KR₩100 per package, they are an affordable pick-me-up and a cheap and easy way to offer drinks to guests. The combination of sweet, milky coffee was created to match the tastes of everyday Koreans.
Instant coffee packets are an easy and convenient way for busy office workers to get their daily caffeine fix, and also great for college students who drink coffee to stay up into the wee hours to study. Instant coffee is so prevalent that there are packets offered at restaurants, convenience stores, and gas stations. They are even sold in vending machines for just about KR₩200 for a small, portable cup.
Personally, I find them overly sweetened. I never developed a taste for sugar in my coffee, even though this was the taste I grew up with. Pre-mixed instant coffee packages come with the sugar on one end so that you can theoretically control how much sugar you add to your mug. But I still find it too sweet for my Americanized palate.
Regardless of my personal tastes, instant coffee mixes continue to be hugely popular throughout Korea. They gained more popularity in the 1990s, during Korea’s financial crisis, when people couldn’t afford to go out for a pricey cup of joe. And that might explain the popularity of dalgona coffee that was all the rage on social media—there is some sweet nostalgia mixed into that instant cup.
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