March 2021
March 2021
Born in Kyushu Island in Japan in 1950, Park was raised in a rural household where he had to tend to the crops for sheer sustenance. It was the need for a stable livelihood that in fact, drove him to study coffee in Japan from 1986. And so forth, years went by with Park devoting his daytime to factory work and nighttime to coffee studies. Upon being advised of Korea¡¯s burgeoning coffee culture, Park flew over to Korea to open his coffee business.
Written by
Yoon Sui
Photographed by
Studio Kenn
In 1988, Park opened a cafe in Hyehwa-dong, where he ended up staying for the next three years. ¡°What I found less than appealing about the location and neighborhood was the amount of carbon emissions and pollution that blurred everyone¡¯s sight.¡± And so he moved to the back gate of Goryeo (or ¡®Korea¡¯) University in 1990, where he then stayed for the next decade.
© shutterstock
Park however, recounts turmoil during the millennium¡¯s last decade operating in the college area. ¡°Too many people were coming to me for coffee lessons; the overwhelming visitations really got too much to handle. As a result, I chose to relocate to Gangneung in July 2000.¡± Park adds, ¡°I guess my next (plan to) move is somewhere less crowded, more secluded than Gangneung.¡±
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Flying to Korea in the 1980s,
he opened what became
Bohemian Roasters in Gangneung.
Conversation with
Park Ichu
QWhat do you think is the main appeal of coffee?
A good cup of coffee offers little spurts of delight, or happiness. Though these aren¡¯t momentous necessarily, I feel that they are minor yet firm, an effect at once solid and bold. After the enjoyable taste, an additional perk follows in the form of respite you are bound to feel after that ¦¡ or every ¦¡ sip.
Though this may apply merely to my personal self, coffee offers me a path forward. It suggests to me what lays onward in my life. That¡¯s probably only because I¡¯m a barista by trade, though.
QWhat¡¯s something you¡¯d still like to achieve?
Somewhere away from here (Gangneung), I¡¯d like to operate a cafe that opens with the sunrise and closes upon sunset. That cafe won¡¯t open on a daily basis, but on minimal frequency that¡¯d yield me just enough for a living. I want that ideal work-life balance where I derive as much ¡®me time¡¯ as I desire.
QWhat advice would you like to offer to cafe owners, managers and operators?
You need to be serious, by which I mean diligent, about coffee and not in it for the money. I believe one shouldn¡¯t use coffee as a mode to chase monetary profit through. I have a fitting analogy that stems from my actual experience. I had a coffee tree back when my store was located near Korea Univ. Despite my diligence in tending to it, especially by moving it around for optimal conditions as per weather fluctuations, the coffee tree went limp one day ¦¡ lifeless.
That¡¯s when it registered to me that our actions may not be as important as our intentions or mind. In other words, once you put your heart into something, you will reap more fulfilling results, accordingly. If you haven¡¯t, it may not matter much what kind of ¡®diligent¡¯ action(s) you take. The coffee business works the same way. If you chase after the money, you could very well lose it all. But if you attend to the craft with sincerity, I do believe the rest will follow.
© GettyImages
As applies to nearly any item of popular consumption, the coffee industry, too, has its own troupe of YouTubers. In contrast to Korea¡¯s abundance of coffee shops or prevalence of coffee culture, Korean coffee-specializing YouTubers (usually baristas, café vloggers and reviewers) claim a relatively niche sector of the digital audience. Among them is Korea¡¯s Howard Schultz-aspirant who leverages his silver-plated YouTube channel to promote his business. Most importantly, his content engages with mainstream audiences in ways that introduce novel ways to enjoy coffee through simple, everyday methods.
Written by
Kim Jane,
features editor
Photographed by
Studio Kenn
Gyeongsangnam-do Province harbors several large seaside cities known primarily for their distinct dialects (and colloquial inflections in speech). Of them, Changwon is one that is relatively less acknowledged in comparison to its population and size. Hailing from Changwon where he is born, raised, lives and continues managing his coffee business he established in 2016 is Park Taejin: one-man operator of YouTube channel ¡®Namja Coffee¡¯ and owner of his brick-and-mortar café of the eponymous title.
Park was led to the coffee business by his sheer love for coffee. Interestingly, that love didn¡¯t sprout from any inclination for its flavor. In fact, he hadn¡¯t tasted coffee, much less been a fan of it, even the moment he ¦¡ a full-grown adult touring the world with his comrades in the military ¦¡ was encapsulated by the sight of vest-clad Italian baristas.
While hating the ¡°bitter taste,¡± he recounts, ¡°I signed up and faithfully attended coffee-making classes. I was a full-time soldier and seven years into my military track when I simply dropped the course that lay ahead of me. I quit to pursue coffee military ¦¡ it was as simple as that. Oh, I was surrounded by a lot of doubters. In fact, I don¡¯t think a single one of my friends believed I was making a right decision at the time, that this new path could work out for me eventually. People straight-up told me I was nuts, that I was putting myself in deep financial risk.¡±
While there may not have been many reasons why, there was one very good reason he continued studying coffee despite all of the above. He recollects, ¡°I was amused to find out how much enjoyment I derived from the oddly mechanical, deeply precise procedure of making coffee. Of working these machines, of opting for the most accurate timing of every act, of achieving the optimal flavor of the beans. The more I learned, the deeper in love I fell!¡±
Conversation with
Park Tae-jin
QWhat exactly does the name (of both your YouTube and café) Namja Coffee mean?
In our dialect (or colloquial speak), ¡®swearing by my (male) gender¡¯ is a phrase we use to denote utmost sincerity. In that sense, I can ¡®swear by my maleness¡¯ or put it on the line to prove how seriously we take coffee, especially in terms of serving our customers with utmost integrity.
QWhat values do you uphold, or try to maintain as a café owner and barista?
Though this may feel similar to my insistence on integrity, I¡¯ll say it anyway. Whether it¡¯s the identity of my YouTube channel or that of the café, I am all about consistency. Since we attend very seriously to each menu item, whether it be the invention or the presentation of it (take a Vienna latte listed here for example) we never add items to our menu ¦¡ whether for the sake of leveraging on trends, timely (or fluctuating) consumer demands or anything else we are less than confident in our capacity to provide in top quality.
Every choice has been made after thorough review and due consideration. That ranges from the kind of ads I accept and filter on my YouTube channel (branded collaboration offers and whatnot) to what dessert we decide to sell. It¡¯d be way more profitable to sell colorful cakes here as coffee-complementary desserts, which not only yield hefty margins but also act as considerable attraction for Instagrammers and their need for catchy visuals, but I refuse. Won¡¯t menu item additions with insufficient meaning or quality hinder our brand identity? If so, what would be the point in serving them to our customers? The same applies to advertising partnerships and sponsorships.
Going back to café management ideals and the Vienna latte in particular: this is exemplary of my pursuit of the ideal balance. Whether between contrastive flavors or aromas between coffee beans, I always strive to strike the right balance. (Though lots of cafes offer the Vienna latte nowadays, they didn¡¯t at the time we started featuring this on the menu.) While I¡¯m certain many others can ¦¡ and have ¦¡ come up with this recipe the way I did, I arrived at the conclusion to include this item on our menu based on my confidence in our ability to produce what delicate and enjoyable balance we opt for the taste of every cup of Namja Coffee¡¯s Vienna latte.
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