Through the popularity of Korean dramas, South Korea is starting to be known as a country with one of the best and most interesting coffee culture. Given their country's cold climate, it's not surprising that most Koreans developed that love for drinking coffee. Even for young Koreans, hanging out with friends over a cup of coffee became a common thing which led to the birth of new, unique and interesting cafe concepts. So as a coffee lover myself, visiting some of the most popular coffee shops in Seoul became a part of my travel itinerary.
Cafe Onion is one of the most popular cafes in South Korea with several branches around Seoul. The branches that I'm most familiar with is the one in Anguk and the other one in Seong-su. The Cafe Onion that we visited is the one in Anguk since this branch is near the Bukchon hanok village. Given it's location and the cafe's popularity to the locals and tourists alike, the cafe can get really crowded at most times so we decided to visit the cafe really early in the morning.
When we arrived at the Cafe near 8 am, there were only around 2 other customers aside from the 3 of us. The downside of going really early near opening time is that lesser variety of pastry kinds are available in their table display. What I'm most fascinated about Cafe Onion in Anguk is their hanok style concept. You will really get that unique feeling that you're having coffee in South Korea.
Most cafes in Seoul offers great looking and tasting pastries and this is one of Cafe Onion's advantage point. When you enter the cafe, you may proceed selecting your desired pastries then afterwards proceed to the counter for your drink orders and payment. You may also watch the baristas making your ordered drinks.
Since it was winter season that time, I opted for a hot cafe latte and picked up one of their butter croissant and a sweet pastry. I fell in love with their coffee mug but unfortunately, they were not selling that kind as one of their cafe merchandise on sale. If you really want that hanok type cafe experience of needing to sit on the floor with low rise tables, there's an area for that but we chose to sit in another area as we didn't want to need to remove our shoes.
The Cafe Latte was actually good. Their croissant was really big and flaky so it's kind of a mess when I started eating it. I wasn't able to take a photo of my friend's order but she chose the strawberry pastry and the squid ink bread with cheese, which turned out tasting really good! The black color scared me when I saw it but it turned out to be my most favorite one from our orders.
When traveling to South Korea, one shouldn't miss out their coffee culture experience. I highly suggest that you include one of the Cafe Onion branches in your must try cafes in Seoul.
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