Café Review: Blue Bottle Seongsu

Today’s café review is the first Blue Bottle café in Korea, located in the Seongsu neighborhood.

the iconic blue bottle signage against a rough exposed concrete wall

“The neighborhood of Seongsu—for which our very first Korean café is named—is changing. In what was once an industrial pocket of the South Korean capital, cafes and galleries are springing up to serve the up-and-coming area referred to by some as the Brooklyn of Seoul.
While Blue Bottle brings much of its Bay Area roots, there’s plenty of old-school Seongsu-dong to hold onto. We’ve used the neighborhood’s trademark red brick, for example, to showcase classic Blue Bottle merchandise, as well as items that can only be found in Korea. Our menu, however, offers the same delicious coffee that can be found in our cafes in the U.S. and Japan.
From the street level, guests will first encounter our roastery against the backdrop of high-rises and trains. Down below is our café, and though located on the basement level, the glass walls and open layout create a calm, sunlit spaciousness—perfect for getting coffee with friends or shopping while you wait for your espresso, single origin, or blend coffee.”

It was interesting seeing the roasting equipment and the espresso machines they probably train the Korean baristas on, but I’d disagree that the area is “sunlit.” It was pretty dark, actually, in the way that a fancy restaurant might be dimmed in order to achieve a romantic effect. The overall feel was pretty industrial, but I loved the red brick touch on the merchandise and how the merch was a separate area from the ordering line. Behind a wall in the seating area was an area of several couches where a few families were sitting.

I imagine that on the weekends, seating can be hard to find. As evidence, I present the blue footprints that start from the entrance at street level and wrap around the front lobby area and then down the stairs to the café. People line up for Blue Bottle, and this café is certainly not going to be any different.

Much to my friends’ amazement, I did not order a coffee, instead opting for a strawberry fizz, which was quite lovely. The barista spoke to me in broken English until asking me to write my name on the screen in front of her, and when I wrote it in Hangul, she was visibly shocked and told me that she didn’t know I spoke Korean. (Spoilers: I don’t, but I could understand what she was saying and where she told me to wait until my name was called.) The fizz reminded me of when I worked at the Mint Plaza Blue Bottle location and I’d pour myself a Cascara Fizz in my Blue Bottle glass mug for the ride back to Oakland.

Unfortunately, my friend’s orange blossom latte tasted like the barista dumped their grandma’s perfume into it, which is not how I remember the drink tasting the last time I went to Blue Bottle. I suggested that she ask for them to just make her a regular latte, but since we had already had coffee that day, she wanted to let it be.

Out of all the Blue Bottle cafes I’ve visited in Korea thus far, this only gets a special mention for being the first to be opened in Korea. Go if you want a gander at the roasting and training area, but I still prefer grabbing a drink at the Gwanghwamun location and sitting alongside the Cheonggye stream.