Coffee craze in South Korea

[bhchao]

For those who are coffee addicts, here is an interesting article on the desire to learn coffee-making in South Korea. http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/culture/200603/kt2006031616584911690.htm

If you would like to work in South Korea, particularly Seoul, a job in the coffee industry offers bright prospects since the demand for the drink is hot right now. (Not to mention earning big bucks as coffee store manager in Seoul while being bilingual at the same time).

Currently Seoul has the largest Starbucks in the world, a 5-story Starbucks in the Myeongdong district.

Personally I am not much of a coffee drinker (prefer black and green tea). Just curious, how abundant are Starbucks, Coffee Bean, and Peet's Coffee in China, particularly in Beijing or Shanghai?

[novemberfog]

I would be very curious about this too. In Taipei, I did not see so many starbucks, but I saw many 咖啡 shops. A lot of the young Taiwanese I met preferred to drink coffee rather than Chinese teas. I was kind of surprised by this, because Taiwan has such wonderful 高山 tea. I experience the same thing here in Japan though, young people prefer coffee or British/Indian style tea.

Bhchao, is this a similar situation in Korea? If tea is more popular, what do you think is the most popular type of tea?

[bhchao]

I think coffee is also more popular than tea among young people in Korea. My co-worker who was born in Korea is an avid coffee drinker; while my cousin who lives in Seoul and in her 30's, also drinks coffee, especially with her friends during the night.

Tenren sells a lot of the 高山 tea you mentioned. Perhaps I should try it one of these days.

[zhenhui]

when i first started work i drank coffee on a daily basis....but i don't think that's good for me so i stopped...now it's once a couple of weeks... i have a colleague that drinks 5 shots of espresso a day....isn't that suicidal?

[skylee]

How much coffee is too much coffee? I drink one at least each working day. The tea lady makes it for me and it is like joining the triad once you are in you can't say you want out. And the other day I counted that I had three (morning, lunch, meeting).

[gato]

There are 59 Starbucks in Shanghai, 49 in Beijing, 104 in Taipei, and 118 in Seoul, and 160 in New York City.

A tall cup of Starbucks house coffee costs about 18 yuan in Beijing(more than it does in the US!), which is very expensive for most Chinese, even those in the big cities, where the average salary is probably somewhere around 2000 yuan per month. For comparison, a meal at one of those quickie Chinese restaurants would run you somewhere between 5 to 10 yuan. Consequently, most coffee shops in Beijing, at least, tend to be close to where there are many foreigners and Chinese who work for foreign companies.

Here's a report by someone who tried to visit all the Starbucks in Beijing in one day. Note that Third Ring Road is about 13Km (8 miles) from east to west. It encloses an area probably twice the size of Manhattan. The reasons he gave for wanting to visit the Starbucks show that going to cafes is still limited to the elites or those going for an occasional splurge (e.g the tourists). It's nothing like grabbing a quick coffee before heading to work like many people do in the US. In fact, many Starbucks and other cafes in Beijing don't even open before 8:30 or 9 o'clock in the morning.

http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20040805_starbucks_in_a_day_beijing_version.htm

The reason I wanted to visit every store is, I want to see this city. Starbucks helped me to choose the best place in the city. Their market research is good. If there is a Starbucks store, it at least gives two hints:

* There are good customer base there (white collar, or tourists)

* The place has good view

It is not 100% but pretty likely to be true.

[roddy]

There are a lot of Starbucks in Beijing, but they're by no means ubiquitous. The Starbucks site lists 49 in Beijing. There were apparently 28 in August 2004.

There's also UBC Coffee, which caters to a less international crowd, and also does food. They have much comfier seating than Starbucks though, unless you get one of Starbucks carefully rationed sofas.

I think Starbucks gets a worse press than it deserves - it's harder tha people realise to be mediocre on a global scale. Same goes for McDonalds and Microsoft.

I think in Beijing Starbucks are much more for business meetings, or quick chats, as they are generally in handy, easy to find locations. Anyone putting any thought into where to meet will go elsewhere.

EDIT: Pesky Gato, not only stealing my post, but improving it and writing it before me!

[Ian_Lee]

Bhchao:

Other than ginseng tea, Koreans seldom drink tea. You go to the Korean restaurant and seldom tea is served unless you ask.

Very interesting exception. Most people in East Asia -- Han Chinese, Mongols, Tibetans, Japanese,...etc all like tea except Koreans and Vietnamese.

But when coffee invades East Asia, Green Tea also invades US. Some prime shopping spaces are now rented by Tea Speciality store. In fact, the best souvenir for your neighbor when you come back from East Asia is a tin can of tea leaf (but better stick with Jasmine or Oolong).

[kimberlyandkeith]

The starbucks listing for NYC is by no means complete....

When we were there last spring, we seriously would come out of a subway stop and see 2 Starbucks across the street from each other.

There might be 160 in Manhattan alone.

[gato]

The starbucks listing for NYC is by no means complete....

When we were there last spring, we seriously would come out of a subway stop and see 2 Starbucks across the street from each other.

There might be 160 in Manhattan alone.

After seeing your post, I scrolled through the list of those 160 Starbucks in NYC and found that all except about 10 are in Manhattan. Don't know why that would be. Maybe the other four boroughs (Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island), which are more spread-out and poorer than Manhattan, don't have that many Starbucks.

[geraldc]

I thought Koreans drank a lot of barley tea.

[bhchao]

Here is an interesting, entertaining article on how many Korean consumption products (like soju drinks), and Starbucks, received their brand names.

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/biz/200604/kt2006041716443211860.htm

[billgo]

Pacific Coffee Company has also opened some stores in Beijing and Shanghai. They have been established in HK for more than 10 years. They have free internet access (2 or 3 PCs in each store) and free wireless. Most people in HK seem to prefer them to Starbucks, I guess because of the free internet and the fact that the seating is more comfortable. I think the quality of the coffee and food is similar to Starbucks. Store locator is here: http://www.pacificcoffee.com/eng/store/st_sto_cnm.html

[skylee]

Yeah I used to prefer Pacific Coffee to Starbucks because of the seating and internet. But Starbucks offers more variety of food (when you really need it) so I've switched. The other day I went to Pacific again and was glad to find that it had strenthened the food department (just) a bit.