A stroll down Coffee Street in Coffee City: South Korea's java obsession

The three vending machinesstand like museum pieces,the last of their kind. A South Korean man plunks a few coins into the one marked Nescafand a few seconds later, out pops a small paper cup filled with cheap, steaming coffee.

Years beforethe advent of the iced caramelmacchiato, these three relics from the early 1990swere part of a larger army of about 50machines that once formed the cornerstoneof Gangneung'snow-famous Coffee Street.

Coffee Street sits on the coastline, along Anmok Beach in the city of Gangneung, about 150 kilometreseast of Seoul. Fifteen years ago, visitors would buy fresh seafood,then grab a50-centcup of coffee and sit by the sea. Nowadays you can't throw a stone without it landing in a $7 cup of single-origin organic pour-over.

There are about 40cafslining thehalf-kilometrestretch of road. And according toMoon Hyun Mee, a manager at Coffee Cupper,these days it seems as though half the women in Gangneung have been trained as baristas.

Coffee Street in Coffee City

"Coffee makes up about 70 per centof the local economy in the Gangneung area," she says as she whips up a latte for a customer. "Many people come from overseas to go on tours of Coffee Street."

Gangneungitself is known as Coffee City.It epitomizes acraze that has swept South Korea in the last decade.

According to the Korean Ministry of Agriculture, the coffee market has tripled over the last 10years to $5.7 billion US.According to Statistics Korea, there were about 88,500cafs nationwide in 2017, up 63 per cent from two years previous.Some estimates suggest that every monthas many as 300 new coffee shopsopen their doors.

Some have attributed this to the arrival of Starbucks in 1999, which introduced the concept of high-end coffee as a status symbol. Almost 20 years later, Seoul has more Starbucks locations than any other city in the world, testament, some say, to the nation's affinity for American culture.

The 1stShop of Coffee Prince

But Shim Seung Su, the son of a coffee roaster who's now opened his own caf nearCoffee Street,has another theory.Coffee shop culture, he says, actually took off 10years ago because of a smash TV show calledThe 1st ShopofCoffeePrince.

"Before that drama we didn't have that many customers," he says."But after Coffee Prince started airing, the number of people buying coffee has gone up a lot."

But Korea may have already reached peak coffee. The growth of cafshas seemingly outpaced consumption. There are so manycafsthe government floated the idea of establishing a minimum distance between shops.According to a report in the Korean Economic Daily, almost half thenew South Koreancoffee shops go out of business within 12 months.

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"The coffee industry is shrinking because there are so many shops," he says. "But I know that there are lots of people who still love to drink coffee, if you make it with passion."

Olympic top-up

Passion for Anmok Beach is what convinced Vancouver's Melvin Palmiano to move to the area 17 years ago.

"This road used to be a dirt road, there never used to be any parking spots, there wasn't a walkway," he says, pointing to various spots along Coffee Street.

Now, he says, it's now almost unrecognizable, and the Olympics may be partially to blame.According to Olympic volunteer Shin Gwan Yong, the government expected a deluge of tourists.So it spent big.

"It wasn't that famous before the Olympics, but five years ago the government started developing this area," Shin says. "Not just the beach but also the restaurants and coffee places so it could develop as a tourist place."

A bad taste

For Palmiano, this coffee fetishizationis leaving a bad taste.

"A lot of the people are very happy now with the amount of people coming here, alot of the people who are visiting really love it," he says. "But there's also the other side."

Out 20 metresor so in the surf sit two black mounds that at first glancelook like rocks. They appeared suddenly a couple of years ago, Palmianosays, and he'd never been able tofigure out what they wereuntil I pointed out they were sculptures.

"They're coffee cups!" Palmianoexclaims.

Further proof, he says,that what used to bea quaint seaside street has becomemore like a coffee theme park.

"I loved the sense of exclusivity because there wasn't a lot of people. In a selfish sense, I don't like it," he says. "But it's really hard to fight upstream."

Sohe's planning to leavetown andmovesomewhere less spoiled, less commercial.Even if the coffee isn't quite as good.