Cafés in South Korea Seoul and Busan

From PX coffee to a manufacturing license

Postwar coffee came through the army. Instant coffee arrived with American troops after liberation in 1945, and goods from the US Army PX were sold widely on the black market.⁴ By 1960 Seoul had about 1,000 dabang (다방, tearooms), and smuggled coffee was estimated at about 95% of what they served.⁴ After the May 16 coup of 1961, coffee was banned in dabang under a campaign for domestic products.⁶

The state then chose to make coffee at home. In 1968, to stop foreign currency leaving the country, the government licensed Dongsuh Foods and Mijoo Industry to manufacture it.⁴ The coffee mix became a national habit in the late 1990s, during the IMF crisis, when companies cut costs and office staff began making their own cups next to the new hot-and-cold water dispensers.⁵

Paik's Dabang, Mega and the chain map

The chain map has split in two. Budget brands grew fastest: Mega MGC Coffee went from 2,173 stores in 2022 to 3,998 in 2025, Compose Coffee from 1,901 to 2,844, and Paik's Dabang (빽다방), whose name borrows the old tearoom word, from 1,231 to 1,844.⁷ Starbucks reached 2,076 stores in the third quarter of 2025.⁷

The middle shrank. Ediya, which had 3,019 stores in 2022, was down to 2,562 in 2024, and Hollys and Coffee Bean also had fewer stores in 2025 than in 2022.⁷ Instant coffee is losing ground in shops too: retail sales of instant fell 26.1% over three years in Market Link's data, while sales of whole beans rose about 20%.¹

Gangneung and the competition circuit

Coffee vending machines were a common way to get a cup in 1980s Korea, and some, rebuilt in vintage style or kept in their original form, still stand along the seafront in Gangneung, in Gangwon Province.⁸

The cafés of Gangneung Coffee Street now line Anmok Beach, and Park Ichu, described as one of Korea's first-generation coffee makers, runs Bohemian Coffee Roasters at Yeongjin Beach.⁸ Terarosa, one of the best-known Korean coffee brands, keeps its full brand experience for its Gangneung locations.⁸ The city has hosted the Gangneung Coffee Festival since 2009, and it draws more than 400,000 people.⁸

Korean baristas compete at the top. At the World Barista Championship in Boston on 11–14 April 2019, Jeon Joo-yeon of Momos Coffee in Busan presented on how carbohydrates shape sweetness in coffee, using a Sidra from the Colombian farm La Palma y El Tucán, and sat at a low table facing the judges.⁹ She was the second woman to win the title, a year after Agnieszka Rojewska of Poland.¹⁰

Seoul and Busan

The dabang grew up in Seoul. Its modern type appeared in Myeong-dong in 1927 and spread to Jongno and Chungmuro, and in the 1970s music dabang, where a DJ played requests, were probably the first themed cafés.⁶ Seoul's cafés now run from roasters in old factories around Seongsu to tea and coffee in hanok houses in Bukchon, late cafés around Hongik University and coffee bars up the stairs of Euljiro's print-shop buildings.

Busan had a dabang era of its own. During the Korean War, when it was the refugee capital, artists escaping the bombing crowded into the city and tearooms sprang up around Gwangbok-dong, next to Gukje Market; painters used them as galleries, writers as places to present new work, and refugees as an address and a telephone.¹¹

The port now carries the trade: more than 90% of South Korea's imported coffee clears customs at Busan, and the budget chain Compose Coffee was founded in the city.¹²¹³ Its baristas keep winning. Lim Jeong-hwan of Aery Coffee took the 2024 Korea National Barista Championship and placed fifth at the world final, and Moon Heon-gwan of Month Coffee won the 2022 World Cup Tasters Championship.¹²