If you are a coffee holic like myself, you probably are someone who would normally drink around 3 cups of coffee a day or possibly more. When coming to South Korea, I was under the impression that coffee would be easy to get everywhere, which is very true. However there is a twist to it.
In Korea just like the rumours say, there are indeed coffee cafes everywhere! Which is absolutely wonderful, but that can start to hurt your wallet after a while, especially if you need more then one cup of coffee a day! Knowing this, I went to my local grocery stores to buy some coffee grounds so I could make my own coffee at home to save some money but I ended up being very surprised! There were no coffee grounds or beans in any of my grocery stores! Only instant coffee! As a coffee holic, this broke my heart! So I grabbed two different types of instant coffee boxes that cost me around $14 and headed home. If you normally brew your own coffee, going to instant coffee is terrible. I quickly learned that instant coffee in South Korea is very weak.
The instant coffee comes in individual sachets, which is convenient for on the go but not so much for at home. 1 sachet is supposed to be for 1 cup of coffee. using one sachet means you are going to have one very watery, weak cup of coffee that tastes terrible! In a standard size mug, you need to use 2 sachets to have a proper tasting coffee. This coffee is also pre flavoured to taste like you have cream and sugar in it. So if you like your coffee black, this is even worse. I am lucky and like my coffee with milk and sugar so I was happy I didn’t have to add those into it.
At first you will find the instant coffee tastes a lot like a not so good Tim Hortons double double or any double double (double cream double sugar coffee). This isn’t very satisfying at first but after 2 weeks you end up enjoying the taste of it.
So whats truly the down side to coffee in Korea? Well it still can be pricey at grocery stores if you don’t buy it on sale, plus you need to use 2 sachets per cup of coffee. I normal buy the 20 sachet boxes which means that one box only gives me 10 cups of coffee. Which can still be a little pricey if it is 7$+ per box at a grocery store. But there is a good side! You can get the same brand of coffee at Diaso! (a Japanese brand dollar store) If you can find a local Diaso near your place you can buy 20 sachet boxes of coffee for 3$ instead of 7$! This is a great way to save money and still get your coffee fix! So 3$ for 10 cups of coffee? That is a great deal! Of course you can still get your daily coffee fix of home brewed fresh coffee from local cafes, but if you are trying not to go poor fast, its not something I recommend.
Don’t want to ever buy instant coffee? Can’t stand it that much? Well you CAN still get coffee grounds and beans here, but you will need to go to a specialty grocery store to get a variety that tastes great! The only thing is that you will be paying a premium price for the coffee grounds. So if you are on a budget, this isn’t ideal. You can find a variety of coffee grounds at large EMarts such as the one in Jukjeon or you can find them in the Specialty Food Markets that can be found in AK Plazas (usually in the AK Plaza building located underground). If you aren’t near any of these types of locations then you will have to do some exploring to find coffee ground shops or specialty grocery stores.
There are different types of French Cafe instant coffees and a few different brands but I personally like the red box French Cafe or the Black Box ones. Those box colours tend to be stronger in flavour, I found the yellow box to be way too mild. Since I can’t read Korean yet, I have no idea what they say. But I will learn soon!
I hope this post and video was informative to some of you who may be coming to Korea for a long length of stay or even be moving here.
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