Best Cafes in Seoul, Korea: 2012 Updates
I moved from Korea to Sweden back in the summer of 2010, and that unfortunately marked the end of my coverage of Korea’s best cafes & roasters (and a few of its quirkiest). However, I get a lot of people asking for recommendations about where to visit in Korea. A number of interesting new cafes...
La Caffe in Seoul, Korea
La Caffe is a restaurant and cafe hidden away in the neighborhood near Wangsimni station. I heard that they had a Slayer espresso machine and made a point of visiting to see what all the fuss was about. You see, the Slayer is a rather rare espresso machine hand built in Seattle, noted in particular...
Coffee Factory
Coffee Factory is one of my favorite cafes in Korea. It’s in the popular Samcheongdong neighborhood around Gyeongbokgung palace, the Presidential Blue House, and a number of foreign consulates. It’s an upscale but unpretentious area that blends traditional and modern Korean culture with its various art galleries, old and new architecture, tea houses and coffee...
Club Espresso
Club Espresso, established in 1990, is one of Korea’s old school specialty coffee houses. They’re located up in the hills in Buamdong, on the northern side of the Blue House/Gyeongbokgung area in Seoul. It’s a unique area that reminds me of Silverlake in Los Angeles (well, just a little bit, and minus the hipsters). Their...
Chan’s Espresso Bar
I stumbled across Chan’s Espresso Bar one night in Hongdae when I glanced into a shop window and saw a Clover (a much hyped, quite expensive, mechanized way of brewing a single cup of coffee quickly with consistency) amidst a coffee bar full of shiny new coffee brewing equipment. I’d never seen a Clover in...



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