Coffee in Korea!

Coffee, coffee, coffee. Anyone who knows me well by now knows that I have a love for coffee. My obsession started last year, my junior year of high school, when our school opened it's own coffee shop, cleverly named Sparbucks (our mascot is the Spartan). The coffee was fairly cheap, but it wasn't the greatest coffee ever known to man. Still, it wasn't bad, and the extra kick of caffeine definitely helped me get through those long days of AP classes, tech theatre rehearsal, SAT class, and the endless other tasks that I must complete throughout the day. And so, I was hooked.

The nature of the program that I went through to study in Korea was quite intensive. Class everyday, weekly morning meetings four days out of the week, additional cultural activities, not to mention homework and other obligations. Add the mental stress of trying to learn and constantly being surrounded by a new language while keeping up with two other foreign languages, and you've got a lot working against you. That's the challenge of studying abroad: being able to mentally and emotionally handle all the stress and exhaustion. Think of how you might be beat after a tough day at school-it's a thousand times harder when everything is in a language that, for the most part, you can't understand. The brain works so much harder just to process simple things. Exchange students usually find that, once they arrive in their host country, they become tired more quickly and more often than they did in their home country. Some adapt to this pretty quickly, some sleep in/go to bed earlier, others find an energy booster of their choice. Mine was coffee, exactly like in America. Hey, why change a good thing?

And so, I discovered the pure awesomeness of Korean coffee shops.

But before I get to that, I ought to mention that coffee in Korea tends to be on the pricier side. While clothing and most other food tend to be cheap compared to American prices, I found that coffee was usually a bit more expensive than the Starbucks in my area (although Starbucks prices are irregular throughout the U.S. Four dollars for a tall latte in NYC? That'd be three dollars where I live!). In Korea, coffee usually runs about four dollars to four dollars and eighty cents, or sometimes even toppling the five dollar mark depending on the shop. Unlike American coffee shops, you usually don't get a size choice. The standard size runs between a tall and a grande. Again, I'm going by Starbucks standards here.

That's another thing. In America, we understand that Starbucks is THE coffee chain that rules the country, causing smaller chains to melt away like whipped cream on top of a steaming vanilla latte. In Korea, there are many major chains that compete fairly equally with one another, in addition to countless independent coffee shops that manage to survive somehow. And they are seriously the most charming shops I've had the pleasure of being in.

Back to pricing: a friend of mine mentioned that the price of coffee drinks in Korea isn't necessarily to cover the cost of the coffee, but for the experience of visiting the coffee shop. Coffee shops, in Korea, are the real deal: relaxing environment, comfy furniture, bookshelves, decorations, great music, impeccable service...all things that American coffee shops claim to have. While they may do have those things, they don't have them to the extent Korean coffee shops have them. To be honest, I can't put my finger on exactly what it is that sets Korean cafes apart from American ones. But EVERYONE and ANYONE who's been to a typical Korean cafe will swear by the different atmosphere. It's so much better. When you walk into a cafe you just get this sort of feeling. Time slows down, kind baristas greet you with a smile, the air is perfect: not too dry or too cold or too warm. The smell of coffee beans lightly linger the air in a pleasant, not overpowering, sort of way. The cafes themselves are impeccably clean, large, and airy. No lack of space, always enough room and enough tables for you to grab a seat while you wait for your order to be made. Everything is just perfect. I don't know why all the cafes I've been too have been this consistent, but whatever system they're going by, they've got it down to a T.

And the coffee just tastes better. Not quite sure why, but when I came back to America and had my first     Starbucks fix, I was quite disappointed. It was a standard Cafe Latte, my go-to drink that I usually order. They never failed me in Seoul, but since I came back to America I've been disappointed. T__T

Unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures of the cafes I went to in Seoul. It's one of those things where I was like, "Oh, I have plenty of time to do that later!" And then I looked up and it was time to leave. D: That happens to me a lot, haha. Time flies by so quickly! It's rather sad.

But I stole pictures off Google Images of many Korean cafes that I had been to, so those are the ones I have displayed throughout the post.

Bottom line: Korean cafes kick the java out of American cafes. Starbucks, you've got some catching up to do!

Cheapest Coffee in Korea: Ediya Coffee (chain)

Best Overall Coffee: Caffe Bene (chain)

Best Variety: Holly's Coffee (also a chain. And Sweet Potato frappuccinos? Come on now.)

So, if you're headed to Korea anytime soon, stop by a few cafes when you need a quick pick me up. It'll be worth your time!