아아 주세요 and Korean coffee culture ☕️

Coffee is a world-wide addiction, and Korea is no different. There, you’ll see an abundance of coffee shops, with many of them trying to go for the “Instagrammable” look.

However, at the end of the day, they serve coffee. And there is specific language around ordering coffee that you might find interesting!

So, today let’s nestle into our favorite coffee shop and order some coffee, maybe some 디저트 (dessert).

Tokki always has a 라떼 on their mind

The types of coffee at the coffee shop

First thing you’ll need to decide what you’ll want to order. Below are some of the different types of coffee that you’ll normally see in the shop:

• Americano = 아메리카노
• Latte = 라떼
• Cappuccino = 카푸치노
• Cold brew = 콜드브루
• Caramel macchiato = 카라멜 마끼아또
• Green tea / Matcha = 녹차 / 말차

How to order coffee matters

Koreans really like to abbreviate their orders. Essentially, you'll be able to use the 아 from 아이스 (ice) or 따 from 따뜻한 (warm) to start the order. Let's take a look:

• 아아 = 아이스 아메리카노
• 따아 = 따뜻한 아메리카노
• 뜨아 = 뜨거운 아메리카노

Can you guess what it would be for 라떼?

• 아라 = 아이스 라떼
• 따라 = 따뜻한 라떼
• 뜨라 = 뜨거운 라떼
• 아바라 = 아이스 바닐라 라떼

And just for fun:

• 아카마 = 아이스 카라멜 마끼아또 (iced caramel macchiato)

Not coffee, but a popular slang: people who only drink ice americano even though its freezing outside..

얼죽아 (얼어 죽어도 아이스 아메리카노) - even though I'm freezing to death, ice americano

Old-school coffee 👴

There use to be these old-school cafes called 다방 (tea room/coffee room). Almost all original 다방 are closed, but these days you can find a few retro style cafes called 다방. They used to look like this:

다방

Because they were called 다방, nowadays Starbucks has a nickname in Korea.

별다방 = Star Coffeeshop

Another big Korean coffee chain is called 빽다방 (Paik, from Culinary Class Wars Netflix show, coffee chain).

These are not the real old school 다방, of course, but just share the name.

When you ordered coffee at a traditional 다방, you used to get served 믹스커피 (mix/instant coffee). But if any cafe does that these days, they'll probably be out of business within a week.

Back in the 80s and 90s, coffee = 믹스커피 (instant coffee) with 프림 (coffee cream, powder type) and 설탕 (sugar)

Some of the older generations still only drink 믹스커피, and always has boxes of 맥심 (instant coffee with a lot of sugar) around their house.

So, when your family gathers, you typically make instant coffee for everyone in the family. You'd ask them how much 프림 and 설탕 they want in their coffee. They would say something like:

프림 하나 설탕 하나 = one cream one sugar

These days, instant coffee comes with cream and sugar at the end of the stick so you can control the amount of sugar you want in your coffee.

From left to right, 커피, 크림, 설탕

Number of Starbucks in Korea v. US

As of January 2025, with 2,009 stores, South Korea became the third country with the most Starbucks locations, following the United States (17,049) and China (7,689).

In terms of the number of stores per million people, South Korea has 38.6, which is fewer than the United States (51.7) but significantly more than Japan (15.9) or China (5.5).

To say the least, Starbucks is popular.

In Korean Starbucks, you'll actually be able to get some pretty neat flavors unique to Korea!

• Hallabong Cheonhyehyang Blended which is exclusively sold in the Jeju region (한라봉 and 천혜향 are two types of mandarin oranges from Jeju)
• Injeolmi Cream Latte with the classic 인절미 (traditional Korean rice cake with sweet and nutty flavors)
• Makgeolli (막걸리, Korean rice wine) Cream Cold Brew

Happy coffee drinking! 짠! ☕️