In this undated photo, a clerk at a Bacha Coffee shop in Singapore serves a cup of coffee for takeout. Courtesy of Lotte Department Store
YouTuber Kim Bo-kyem drinks a coffee he purchased from a Bacha Coffee store in Seoul, Tuesday. Screenshot from YouTube
A Korean influencer has shared his experience visiting the country's first Bacha Coffee shop and tasting its coffee, which generated buzz for charging 1.4 million won ($1,000) per 100 grams of beans.
Kim Bo-kyem posted on Tuesday a short clip on his YouTube channel Bokyem TV in which he visited the store in central Seoul and purchased a takeout cup of coffee dripped from Paraiso Gold Coffee beans, of Brazilian origin and the most expensive beans available at the shop.
Kim, apparently visiting the shop for the first time, shared glimpses into how the venue looked like a smaller version of a British royal palace, how he had to fill out a form to order and how the shop was being monitored by in-house security guards. When he asked a clerk if anyone had bought Paraiso Gold coffee here before, the clerk said no.
The two-story shop, which opened in Seoul's Cheongdam-dong area on Aug. 1, is the first Bacha Coffee location in Northeast Asia and the 24th worldwide. The shop sells a takeout cup of Paraiso Gold coffee for 200,000 won. The cheapest coffee is 16,000 won for a pot of 350 milliliters. For tasting it while seated inside the Coffee Room on the second floor of the shop — where patrons can also dine in for desserts, brunch, entrees and wine in a fully serviced environment — the same coffee costs 480,000 won for 350 milliliters.
Saying he made a rare commitment to splurge on the controversial coffee, Kim took the coffee served in a paper tray alongside a sugary confectionary stick, a wooden spoon and cream out the front door and tasted it right away.
“The aroma feels like a really mild scent from Febreze,” Kim said after the first sip, referring to a popular air freshener brand.
Taking a second sip and pondering for a few seconds, he judged the taste. “It tastes like a Mega Coffee with mild strength,” he said with a widening smile, referring to the country's biggest low-cost coffee franchise brand. “Well, that was something I never expected.”
The clip has attracted over 950,000 views and over 29,000 likes as of Thursday.
An Intelligentsia Coffee shop inside Shinsegae Department Store's main location in Seoul is crowded with customers, July 18. Courtesy of Shinsegae Department Store
Premium coffee brands flock to Seoul
Lotte Department Store opened Bacha Coffee's first flagship store in Seoul's Cheongdam-dong area after its CEO Chung Joon-ho in September acquired an exclusive license for distributing and franchising the brand here. To make the deal, Chung flew to Singapore, where V3 Gourmet, which runs the coffee brand, is based. Chung then started selling Bacha Coffee products online in April.
Starting with the Cheongdam store, Lotte plans to expand Bacha's franchise by opening the second shop in Lotte's main department store in downtown Seoul's Myeong-dong area within this year and another one in Jamsil area early next year.
Bacha, a Moroccan premium coffee brand that has been selling in Marrakech since 1910, isn't the only foreign premium coffee brand that has recently launched a business here.
Intelligentsia, one of the three biggest specialty coffee makers in the United States, opened its second shop in Shinsegae Department Store's main location in central Seoul in July. This follows the brand's first Korean store in central Seoul's Seochon area, which opened in March.
No Coffee, originating from Japan's Fukuoka and famous for a “black latte,” opened its first shop in Seoul in April. Ralph's Coffee, a refreshment arm of global fashion company Ralph Lauren, has begun searching for baristas here for its first shop in Korea, while Norwegian coffee company Fuglen earlier this month opened a social media channel and announced it is looking for a location here.
Coffee companies around the world are flocking to Seoul because Korea has proven to be the world's third-biggest coffee market behind China and the United States. According to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the country's coffee market in 2022 was valued at over 3.17 trillion won, a 23 percent jump from 2018. In 2022 the average person in Korea drank 405 cups of coffee, more than double the global average of 152.