elizbeartravel posted: " Originating from Oakland, California, Blue Bottle Coffee was founded by James Freeman who ran the small coffee roaster with his wife in the early 2000s. Since then, they have expanded worldwide to a total of 99 outlets in major cities beyond the United S"
Originating from Oakland, California, Blue Bottle Coffee was founded by James Freeman who ran the small coffee roaster with his wife in the early 2000s. Since then, they have expanded worldwide to a total of 99 outlets in major cities beyond the United States like Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and Shanghai
I am not a coffee connoisseur but more of an aficionado who started drinking coffee at a young age. Unfortunately, due to an incident, I could no longer drink coffee in 2012 and had to give up on my daily coffee. Even during those days, the only coffee available was Illy coffee so personally I have not heard of Blue Bottle until recently. The great thing is I started drinking Americano last year to start my body back on coffee and the first drip coffee I drank was from Blue Coffee made by my colleague. With this single fact, I developed special feelings for Blue Bottle so I made sure to visit them during my Seoul trip
Enough of history and back to my visit, I visited the outlet in Seongsu as it was the nearest to my hotel and I only had half a day to spare. Located in an office-like brick building, I walked from one end to the other looking for the cafe as the sign was so small and easily missed out. I nearly took out my maps to see if the taxi dropped me at the correct location until I spotted this tiny sign so I quickly made my way inside
Housed in a building which looks like an abandoned industrial factory, the cafe kept to the raw and concrete design with grey concrete and metal fencing with minimal furnishings. The first island that greets any customers is the main coffee counter where the baristas make the beverages and take the orders. The main sitting area is to the left of the counter which is a few steps downwards with very simple and clean furniture and almost no decorations on the wall
Right in front of the counter, is a spacious shelf selling Blue Bottle merchandise like mugs, tumblers, coffee flasks as well as slow-drip coffee equipment. To the right of the counter, you can see all the available coffee beans for sale at the outlet as well as a simple explanation of the beans profiling. Further right is a very interesting enclosed workshop area where we can see baristas in training learning how to make coffee as well as learning about different roasted beans
As I had a long list to-do list on my only free day and my main aim in visiting the cafe was to purchase their beans, I only ordered an iced Americano without any desserts or snacks. The environment was very quiet and relaxing with good spacing between tables for customers to get their own space. The iced americano was good and smooth with nice coffee notes which was extremely refreshing for a morning perk-up
Overall, I really love the coffee roasted by Blue Bottle and have been having their coffee for at least more than 6 months. The coffee from their beans is really fragrant but less acidic compared to other beans from other roasters or brands. This allows me to drink them almost daily since it does not affect my gastric badly. I will continue to buy more of their beans to try the different varieties available
Address: 7 Achasan-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, South Korea
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