Koffee & Kpop

Walking into La Colombe in Seoul, you wouldn’t think that you just stepped into a cafe thousands of miles away from all the other La Colombe cafes. For starters, there’s a bright red van parked outside you can actually sit inside of while you drink your coffee. Then there’s the same kind of wood tables and chairs. The same originally-hand-painted now-printed Italian-made Deruta pottery.

However, eventually the little things will remind you that you are, in fact, thousands of miles away from all the other La Colombes. For starters, despite having a draft set-up in the van, the La Colombe in Seoul doesn’t actually serve draft lattes. Look closely enough at the menu options and you’ll see a word misspelled here and there. (This is perfectly acceptable to me, but signals that it is not an official franchised La Colombe, which would have gone through many pairs of eyeballs for design and copywrite purposes.)

The cafe has photos of all of the original cafes around the US, and in one, my first boss at La Colombe can be seen, serving a customer behind the bar. But this cafe is not part of the La Colombe franchise. It doesn’t appear on any list of La Colombe websites, and the only trace of it on the internet I can find is on the La Colombe blog from 2012 and another blog post from 2013 that claims there are a total of three locations in Seoul.

It is, as mentioned on the blog, a “partnership with our collaborative shareholders” which means, uh… something. Basically, from what I understand of the story is that a couple from Korea fell in love with La Colombe in the US and decided to bring a little bit of La Colombe back to Korea and operate in a strange, gray area where the store is both a La Colombe and serves La Colombe coffee but also not a La Colombe, and thus, does not serve draft lattes as they’re a proprietary recipe.

For full disclosure, I was a lead barista at a La Colombe in Washington, DC before I moved to Korea, so La Colombe will always hold a spot in my heart.

And a lemon shandy (cold brew with lemon) in my fridge. What I wouldn’t give for a damn lemon shandy right now as the weather starts getting hotter in Gyeonggi-do.

I really enjoyed the two times I went to La Colombe in Seoul, but I really, really wish they served draft lattes. I think they would do really well in Korea, which has an affinity for cold/iced drinks, and a draft latte is unlike anything you’ve ever tasted before. It comes out of a tap like beer, but is nothing but coffee and milk. La Colombe in the US is doing all sorts of new and inventive things like strawberry oat milk drafts, chai draft latte…

With Blue Bottle’s firm roots in Korea, and now Tim Horton’s has arrived, the time would be right for La Colombe to consider opening up a location in Korea. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be an actual location. Just let me make draft lattes and sit in the truck pouring those all day in some hip spot in the city, and they’d see just how popular they’d be in a country where cold to-go drinks are all the rage.

Seriously.

Call me. xoxox

Instagram: @lacolombe_korea