Plenty Of Roasters And Cafes

It's not possible to walk around in Seoul and not find good coffee. Along any street in town, there'll be at least five cafes within 250m that will serve dessert, tea and coffee, and definitely, two will offer a good cup. I'm not talking about Ediya, Tom n Toms, Caffe Bene, Starbucks or Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Neither am I referring to the wannabe-hipster-to-be-seen 'coffee' joints that serve crappy stuff. The good stuff is found at the big and tiny coffee places who bother to roast their own beans. Over the last 4 years, the entire scene has boomed and mushroomed. Seoul has a burgeoning culture when it comes to independent coffee joints.

Seoul's property rental rates aren't kind at all. It's got a weird system. (See previous post on 'jeongsei'.) The rentals for commercial property are on an even more cheeeeem system. So it's quite intriguing that this many cafes open. The friends say that a good half of the cafes can't sustain the business and will eventually close at the end of their leases. Chasing one's dreams is fine, but a sound business plan must accompany the eventual goal of sustainability. But this spirit of entrepreneurship is flourishing in the city.

As much as I'm into tea, I'll save that for another post. This trip is ridiculously riddled with caffeine. On the whole, I drank more coffee than tea. Drank many brews of drip. Full on espresso. That's the only way to try the beans of any coffeeshop and not fill up the tummy with useless milk. At least the man and I can share a few shots so as to spread the caffeine intake across four coffeeshops in a day, in the spirit of living dangerously on four to five hours of sleep per night.

The coffee joints are either tiny shops that don't provide seats, or spacious comfortable chill-out joints that welcome customers to sit for as long as they like. There're so many cafes that I'm not even bothered to list the few I like. I gotta break it down into districts north and south of the river! Yes, it's that many. Suffice to say, there're plenty of good choices within a stone's throw from the hotel, and along the way to the nearest two subway stations. What they don't fully offer, is a robust and beautiful flat white. So what I do between espressos but needing a not-too-weak brew, is to control my order (instead of complaining) by requesting for a 'caffe latte' filled three-quarters with milk or on some days, 'caffe macchiato' works great. And of course I can now order coffee perfectly in Korean, requesting for less milk. I can count up to ten. Heeeee.