
By Foong Pek Yee
13 Dec, 2021
Jeonpo Cafe Street in Busan, South Korea has 40 cafes and still counting.
It is the place for coffee lovers; from good coffee, ambience and service to an interesting history behind it.
Stumbled upon the place during my trip to Busan in the Summer of 2019, I went there a few days to try out the cafes and has plans to go there again.
After all, my favourite pastime is sitting at a cafe reading or watching the world go by.
I learned that South Koreans are particular over the ambience of a cafe, and this is not without reason.
To begin with, coffee was the drink for only the royalty until 1930.
In 1896, Korea’s King Kojong was introduced to coffee in Russia where he took refuge from invading Japanese.
He fell in love with hot coffee with sugar and brought home his favourite beverage.
From then until 1930, sipping hot coffee, eating sweet snacks and listening to classical music was only for the royalty.
Coffee beans were available in the market from 1930 but only the rich had access to it.
By 1950, coffeeshops or Da-Bang started to crop up in town areas.
In 1970, a company, Dong – Suh, started manufacturing powdered coffee in South Korea, making coffee easily available to the people .
The history of coffee in Korea is proudly displayed at the entrance to Busan Coffee Museum (BCM) in Jeonpo Cafe Street.
Kim Dong-Kyu – the founder and owner of BCM- has an extraordinary love for anything coffee.

Focus: Dong-Kyu aims to make Busan Coffee Museum the largest of its kind in the world.
Allergic to coffee beans and never tasted coffee before, Dong-Kyu went on to marry Woo Hee Nae, a licenced master Barista.
BCM was set up in 2018 and Dong-Kyu in his early 30s, says he has researched on coffee for a decade by then.
His collection of some 450 exhibits; from roasters, grinders, coffee makers, coffee beans and literature from all over the world, some dated back a few centuries, makes BCM a one-stop-centre for coffee lovers.

Fascinated : Visitors to Busan Coffee Museum.

Priced collection: An old fashioned coffee grinder.

Your favourite pick : Coffee beans from around the world.
The Korean Economic Institute of America was reported saying some two billions cups of coffee are consumed daily worldwide.
Koreans reportedly drink an average of 12.3 cups coffee a week in 2019.
Dong-Kyu – a professionally trained curator and landscape engineer- has plans to turn BCM into the largest of its kind in the world.
He has another coffee museum in his house in Yangsan, a 30-minute-drive from Jeonpo.

Attention : You can find anything coffee.
Jeonpo cafe Street is certainly an ideal location for BCM.
Jeonpo rose to be among the trendiest spots in Busan in just a decade, with some 40 cafes among its 170 outlets which are mostly eateries and accessory shops.
Prior to that, Jeonpo was like any backstreet with sunset businesses like hardware stores .
Young people moved in to transform the area – renovated the empty stores into chic cafes and eateries, and the rest is history.