The city of Gangneung out on the Korean east coast is famous for the huge amount of coffee shops, so we went to check out what they’re all about. First stop: Bohemian Roasters (Park Ichu).

Naver maps link: Bohemian Roasters (PARK Ichu Coffee Factory)

Google maps:

The place is one of the most well known in the area and they roast beans in-house, or rather next door in a separate building. The space stretches over 3 full floors with plenty of seating and a nice view of the nearby beach.

For beans, there are plenty of options to choose from; I went for the Ethiopian.

As far as preparation goes it was pretty intuitive (to avoid the word careless). No scale for the beans or the water, and they used one timer for 4-5 coffees at a time. The pouring was also pretty rapid-fire and it seemed as if it was more about producing as many as possible as quickly as possible than about truly putting a lot of energy into every single cup.

The dripper had a consistently high water level, which again I am not sure that’s the best way of producing drip coffee (but it may be a ‘style’ question).

The end product was ok, but felt a little light in terms of taste. All in all, the coffee shop is a nice hang out with a great potential – but I didn’t really feel a lot of caring for quality.