NOC Coffee – Hong Kong Cafe
Not too long ago, I was lucky enough to visit Hong Kong for a little over a week as part of a month-long trip through Asia. But my luck didn’t last long. I came down with the flu and spent several days locked down in a shared dorm-style AirBNB in Tsim Sha Tsui, with friendly...
Fresh Cup Magazine on Korean Coffee Culture
Dan Leif at Fresh Cup magazine recently wrote a great piece on the specialty coffee industry in Korea. I’m quoted a couple times and was happy to provide background for the story. Definitely recommend reading if you’re at all interested in the state of the industry in Korea. While growth in South Korea has...
Best Cafes in Seoul, Korea: 2012 Updates
Below you’ll find a list of the best quality focused cafes that have opened in Seoul since 2010. For great cafes opened before 2010, check out my other reviews of Korean cafes. I moved from Korea to Sweden back in the summer of 2010, and that unfortunately marked the end of my coverage of Korea’s...
Paul Bassett, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Paul Bassett’s shop at Gosok Terminal in Seoul, Korea (article here), was one of my most frequented shops due to its consistently great espresso (though its convenient location didn’t hurt). They also have a shop in Tokyo that I had a chance to visit this past summer. It turns out that Paul Bassett’s Shinjuku cafe...
Streamer Coffee in Tokyo, Japan
Streamer Coffee is a cool cafe located in a more residential part of Shibuya, not far from the station. It’s run by Hiroshi Sawada, a latte art champion, along with Takehiro Kato. They have quite an ambitious array of branded products (t-shirts, leather cup-holders, glass jars, etc. etc.), including some co-branded with Espresso Parts (you...
Anniversaire Cafe, Tokyo
Omotesando is a neighborhood known for its cluster of high-fashion flagship stores (Chanel, Dior, Prada, you name it, it’s there), as well as its boulevard lined by Zelkova trees that provide welcome shade and refreshing greenery. It’s in this setting that we visited Anniversaire Cafe and found ourselves in the midst of a wedding ceremony,...
Cafe de l’Ambre: Old School Coffee in Tokyo, Japan
Cafe de l’Ambre is a quirky Tokyo legend, located a few zigzagging side-streets away from the main shopping area at Ginza. You may have seen it mentioned before when Australian barista champion Scott Callaghan wrote about his trip around the world here. The coffee bar and roastery has been around since the late 1940s and...
Pot Luck @ Opening Ceremony, Tokyo
Update Jan 13, 2012: A reader in the comments writes that this cafe is now closed, replaced by an Italian restaurant. Enjoy the post below for historical purposes :) Here’s the first in a series of reviews I’ll be posting from my trip to Japan last August. I was only there for five days so...
Belief Coffee in Seoul, Korea
Belief is a relatively new cafe that I first visited many months ago in the Hongdae neighborhood of Seoul, Korea. When I stopped in the first time they were just setting things up, didn’t have an espresso machine installed, and were still apparently adjusting their roast profiles. I stopped in again a couple months ago...
La Caffe in Seoul, Korea
UPDATE: La Caffe’s owner writes in the comments below: “Big thanks to all our lovely customers. LaCaffe currently closed. We are renovating to cafe related business workshop, not cafe. See you soon with big news.” La Caffe is a restaurant and cafe hidden away in the neighborhood near Wangsimni station. I heard that they had...
MK2 Cafe
MK2 is a cool looking spot in the neighborhood to the west of Gyeongbokgung palace. The decor is made up of mostly mid-century modern furniture, and they have a Faema E61 espresso machine on which they churn out a pretty decent espresso. It seems like a really chilled out place to relax and study, do...
KT Olleh Square Cafe
Korea Telecom has built quite a nice little cafe in their first floor show room, amid all the office buildings and historical attractions at Gwanghwamun station near Gyeongbokgung palace. One would expect that a cafe in an electronics showroom would be little more than a gimmick to draw in more potential customers, but I was...
