Korean Café Culture: Why South Korea Loves Coffee

South Korea loves coffee because cafés fill a gap in daily life: they are where people study, meet friends, work remotely and escape small apartments, and they are designed to be places worth spending hours in. Korean cafe culture combines a huge density of coffee shops, fierce creativity in café design and a strong taste for iced drinks year-round. The numbers back it up, with Statistics Korea counting more than 100,000 coffee shops nationwide in 2022.

Here is how coffee went from a royal novelty to a national habit, what makes Korean cafés so distinctive, and how the dalgona craze fits in.

From Dabang to Coffee Nation: A Brief History

Coffee arrived in Korea in the late 1800s. King Gojong is often described as one of the first Koreans to drink it, in the 1890s, and coffee long remained a drink for the elite. Early coffee houses were called dabang, and modern-style dabangs spread through central Seoul from the late 1920s, becoming meeting spots for artists, writers, politicians and businesspeople.

After the Korean War (1950–1953), instant coffee introduced by the US military changed everything. Instant coffee, and later the sweet three-in-one coffee mix sticks with creamer and sugar, became the everyday cup in offices and homes. By the early 2000s, instant coffee still made up the vast majority of coffee drunk in Korea.

The shift to espresso began when Starbucks opened its first Korean store in Sinchon, Seoul, in 1999. Korean chains followed quickly, and then came an explosion of independent cafés. Today South Korea has one of the largest Starbucks networks in the world, passing 2,000 stores at the end of 2024.

Korean Cafe Culture by the Numbers

Why does Korean cafe culture feel so intense to visitors? Partly because coffee shops are everywhere, sometimes several on a single block. A few reported figures help explain the scale:

That 405-cup estimate is more than two and a half times the global average reported in the same data, which puts South Korea among the heaviest coffee-drinking countries in Asia.

Why South Korea Loves Coffee

There is no single reason, but several forces work together:

• Cafés as living rooms. Apartments in big cities are often small, so cafés are where people meet, date and hang out.
• Study and work culture. Students and office workers use cafés for long study sessions and laptop work, often staying for hours.
• Coffee as a social ritual. Grabbing a coffee after lunch with coworkers is a near-daily habit for many office workers.
• Design and social media. Cafés compete on interiors, and a beautiful space draws visitors who share photos online.
• Iced coffee all year. The iced americano, often shortened to “ah-ah” in Korean slang, is a staple even in winter.

Themed Cafés: Korea’s Most Creative Coffee Shops

Korea’s cafés are famous for going all-in on a concept. Some of the styles you are likely to find in Seoul and other cities include:

• Animal cafés, where cats or dogs share the space with customers.
• Character and pop-culture cafés, built around cartoon characters or temporary pop-up themes, including K-pop fan events.
• “2D” cafés with black outlines painted on white furniture and walls, so the room looks like a hand-drawn sketch.
• Hanok cafés set in restored traditional Korean houses with courtyards and wooden beams.
• Bakery cafés on the outskirts of cities, huge spaces built as weekend destinations.
• Minimalist specialty bars focused on single origins and pour-over.

The constant reinvention is part of the appeal. A new concept can become a social media hit almost overnight, which pushes owners to keep experimenting.

The Dalgona Link: Korea’s Viral Coffee

In early 2020, Korean cafe culture went global through a drink most people made at home. On the TV show Stars’ Top Recipe at Fun-Staurant, actor Jung Il-woo tried a hand-beaten coffee at a café in Macau and compared its taste to dalgona, a Korean honeycomb toffee. The name stuck. As people stayed home during the pandemic, videos of whipping instant coffee, sugar and hot water into a fluffy foam spread across YouTube and then TikTok in March 2020.

Whipped coffee itself is not new. Similar beaten coffees exist in India and elsewhere. But the Korean name and the social media moment made it a worldwide trend. For the full method, see our dalgona coffee recipe.

Quick Dalgona at Home

1. Combine 2 tablespoons (about 6 g) instant coffee, 2 tablespoons (25 g) sugar and 2 tablespoons (30 ml) hot water in a bowl.
2. Whisk by hand for several minutes, or about 2 minutes with an electric mixer, until thick, pale and glossy.
3. Fill a glass with ice and about 3/4 cup (180 ml) cold milk.
4. Spoon the foam on top and stir before drinking.

Our Premium Instant Coffee works well here. For a café-style iced drink without the whisking, try our iced latte recipe.

Bringing Korean Café Style Home

You do not need a Seoul storefront to borrow the best ideas from Korean cafés:

• Make an iced americano your default. Pull or brew a strong coffee and pour it over a full glass of ice with cold water.
• Play with flavors. Korean menus feature sweet lattes like vanilla, caramel and sweet potato. Flavored beans let you get there without syrups.
• Set the scene. Good glassware, a tidy corner and a little care in presentation make a home coffee feel like an outing.
• Keep caffeine in check. Multiple iced americanos add up. The FDA cites up to 400 mg of caffeine a day as an amount generally not associated with negative effects for most healthy adults. If you are pregnant, have a medical condition or take medication, ask your doctor.

Korean Cafe Culture FAQ

How many coffee shops are there in South Korea?

Statistics Korea counted about 100,700 coffee shops in 2022. That is roughly double the number of outlets of the country’s four biggest convenience store chains combined, according to reports at the time.

What is the most popular coffee in Korea?

The iced americano is the everyday favorite, ordered in every season. Sweet instant coffee mix sticks are still very common at home and in offices.

Is dalgona coffee really Korean?

The name is Korean, from a honeycomb toffee called dalgona, and the 2020 trend took off in Korea. Similar whipped or beaten coffees existed earlier in other countries, including India and Macau.

Why do Koreans spend so long in cafés?

Cafés serve as study rooms, offices and meeting places. With smaller homes in big cities and a strong study culture, a café table is often the most comfortable place to spend a few hours.

Your Korean Café Moment

Korean cafe culture shows that coffee is as much about the place and the people as the cup itself. To recreate it at home, try a smooth, sweet Caramel coffee for a café-style latte, explore our full flavored coffee collection, or keep a jar of instant on hand for your next dalgona. Every Feel Espresso coffee order is roasted 1 to 5 days before delivery, so your iced americano starts fresh.