Drinking a David Coffee™ while the world ends outside
TL;DR: On stopovers, jetlag caffeine — and snow.
Down a relatively quiet alley in the heart of Jongno, Seoul, there’s a coffee shop run by a guy called Mr K. where he serves, quite simply, the best flat white in the world. Sounds hard to believe, I know, but Mr K. bosses the espresso machine at Coffee Roasters Bongneun Achim Co. (@acp_jongro) like no other barista I’ve ever seen.
I’d like to write a few words about my experience of drinking 10 coffees made by Mr K. in the space of four days (across two separate stopovers) last month (November 2024). But just to get the product endorsement out of the way, and so that you can decide whether to continue reading, Mr K has named a coffee on his menu after me.
Now, it’s not like I’m the only person who loves Coffee Roasters Bongneun Achim Co.: the Google reviews are off the lid, and Mr K’s roastery has the advantage of being located right in the middle of an urban agglomeration of around 25 million people. I mean, even this bespoke place saw more foot traffic in one hour than Wânswert experiences in a year.
(Which probably only proves why there are no cafes here, in this tiny village of 200 people, unless you count the community hall a cafe — which it is, when it opens, once a month. But I digress.)
Perhaps it had got to the point where I’d ordered so many “strong and hot” (my instructions) flat whites that Mr K eventually felt obliged to re-name this particular drink the “David Coffee”™ in my honour. But how had we even got to this point?
Even Mr K. himself seemed to doubt the authenticity of my praise during one of our first interactions.
“So, Mr David, have you been to any other coffee shops in Seoul?” he’d asked me, innocently enough, after handing over my flat-white David Coffee™, having quickly also learnt that, as far as I was concerned, it did not require a lid.
“No,” I lied, “only this one.”
“Oh,” Mr K replied, almost wistfully, as if he might have appreciated any competitor intel I might have wished to offer.
“You serve the best coffee in Seoul,” I continued, more truthfully this time.
“Thank you,” said Mr K. Then, suddenly: “See you again!”
And so it went.
For three days on my outbound stopover and less than 24 hours on the return, Mr K’s coffees powered me through the worst jetlag and transport-related exhaustion I have ever experienced. In this post, I want to focus on three simple aspects of this experience: stopovers, jetlag caffeine — and snow.
Mr David’s feelings for snow
The first two I’ve touched on already. But what about snow? I’m so glad you asked because ever since the first time I encountered snow in Korea in 2005, its arrival been accompanied by an ominous portent or actual event in my life. Not to be over-dramatic (moi?) but snow and I have had a troubled relationship for a very long time.
Not even the experience of living in Sweden for 11 years left me with anything like what I’d call total snow awareness (TSA). I just can’t handle the stuff, especially when it arrives unexpectedly, or turns to ice. Which is exactly what happened the night I flew into Seoul out of Sydney on my return stopover.
Right out of TSA.
I’d blame the lightning that almost struck our incoming plane, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. Because having narrowly avoided an exploded engine, the status of which I was required to relay to the flight attendant sitting across from me, having chosen an exit-row window seat, and therefore with a clear view of the engine.
Oh and also apparently having been the only person onboard who had seen the actual lightning. Eleven hours into an eleven-hour flight, and having not slept for more than an hour of that, I was forced to explain over the noise of the descending plane that the lightning had exploded around five to ten metres in front of the airplane’s engine.
The flight attendant asked me if I had seen fire or smoke. She said she had seen a red flash but I knew that was only the intermittent lights on the fuselage that had been blinking on and off for the entire trip.
Then she took a call on her handset.
“It was lightning,” she told me.
“That’s what I thought,” I might have replied, if my head wasn’t turned sharply the other way so that I could continue monitoring the status of the still-intact engine. And the wing, while I was at it. All of which was very hard in a blizzard.
Once the plane landed, the flight attendant continued chatting amiably about lightning, engine fires — and snow. And it was then I realised, although I’d seen the forecasts predicting snow, that we had entered what the transport authorities in Toronto, Canada, had called a “snow event” during my infamous trip there in 2018.
Only this time we were at Incheon Airport outside Seoul, and the snow event we were slowly gliding into, as we taxied in terrific slow motion across vast spaces illuminated by sheets of snow glinting in the arc lights, was of the kind that we used to say was only likely to happen “once every hundred years”.
Terminal 1 was like a climate-refugee movie film-set
Our plane had been due to land at Incheon at 20:05 but touched down approximately two hours later. It then took another one-and-a-half hours for the plane to reach the gate. This was all because of the massive snowstorm that had hit Seoul and surrounding areas earlier in the day and seemed to be continuing to do so.
We crawled and stopped, crawled and stopped. I imagined the tyres of the plane getting bogged in slushy snow.
I went a little crazy.
Then there was, of course, the time it usually takes to deplane and reach the main body of Terminal 1 at Incheon, which requires walking through a vast concourse and boarding a shuttle train, plus the need to pass immigration and collect baggage. All of which often seems to just fucking drag on.
But I think back now on this not unpleasant hour as the eye of the storm, a time during which my views of what was happening outside — not to mention inside — the terminal were mercifully few and faraway. Because what greeted me in the gigantic expanse of the arrivals hall was a scene out of an epic climate-refugee movie.
Ours was just one of dozens — maybe hundreds — of delayed flights, all of which were now disgorging their tired and jetlagged passengers into the concourse and the terminal building. It was also after midnight, which meant that the normal services available in the airport were shutting down for the night.
This meant that the airport express train, the all-stops metro service and the majority of the airport buses would not being running again until after 5am. The only open convenience store was crammed with customers and as for the sole operating coffee shop, just forget about it. At least the toilets were open, and in fine working order.
All around me, arriving passengers who had resigned themselves to a long wait had begun making up places to sleep on the terminal floor. The lucky ones grabbed benches or chairs, while the rest made do with a coat or a travel pillow as their only defence against the cold, marble floor itself.
I took a look outside at the state of the taxi rank. You can probably imagine what I saw: long lines of people with luggage waiting in the snow like penguins huddled on a glacier. Occasionally a taxi would come along and there would be fights about who got to claim it, and over how much they would need to pay.
At one point I decided to try my luck in this queue, and spent an awful two hours in the line, only to reach the front and realise that taxi drivers were demanding upwards of UDSD 250 for the trip into the city — a steep fee which some people were more than happy to pay. But in the end I was so cold I just went back inside to wait.
The floors of the arrivals hall continued filling up. I eventually found a spot in a corner and just sat there for a while to allow my feet to thaw, and pondered my options. There weren’t many. Then I had the bright idea of trying to check in my suitcase for my final leg and take it from there.
However, even the shuttle bus that connected Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 (from where my return flight would depart at 11pm the next day) would not be operating until 5am. So, I waited along with the thousands of other people waiting there for something to happen. And at 5.30am I finally managed to catch a bus to Terminal 2.
Where I was promptly told that I would not be able to check in my baggage until 8pm — 15 hours from the present moment. I finally broke then, and visited Terminal 2’s sole coffee shop to order a disgraceful cafe latte. Well, at least it was hot. Its meagre amounts of caffeine and sugar were enough to propel me onto the airport train at 6am.
Several microsleeps later, the train arrived at Seoul Station and I somehow managed to get onto a bus with my luggage for the 15-minute trip to the hotel I’d stayed at on my outward stopover. However, it was now 8am; I only had the room until 11am. Which left me with time for a shower and doze. But what then?
Thankfully, the receptionist agreed to allow me to stay for the day, on the condition that I pay an extra 30,000 won (around EUR 20). To my shame, I arced up at this request and refused to pay more than 20,000 won. Rapidly approaching the end of this journey’s half-life, I dragged my luggage to my room to crash.
It felt like reaching the end of a harrowing movie.
The sun after the snow: A kind of stopover clarity
How I managed to undress, shower and then land myself on the hotel room’s single bed before falling asleep I’ll never really know. But I only managed to lose consciousness for about an hour — which may have been a perverse by-product of my jetlagged state but was probably just my lizard brain responding to the sun coming through the window.
It was also 10am and I hadn’t had a coffee for almost 24 hours. Remembering (as if I’d actually forgotten!) that Coffee Roasters Bongneun Achim Co. was just a two minute walk from my hotel, I quickly dressed and left my room, descending in the elevator to the hotel lobby where the sunshine was also streaming in, albeit improbably.
Outside the aftermath of the previous night’s snowstorm remained visible but the sunlight gave the clumps of snow and slush a surreal, almost ethereal quality. Sure, it was still windy and cold but there was something comforting about being outside, even if I was surrounded by high-rise buildings and walking on asphalt.
Arriving at the nondescript building that housed Coffee Roasters Bongneun Achim Co., I felt a surge of joy. There was Mr K. behind the counter, preparing an aero coffee or something, like some old-school alchemist thoroughly absorbed in his craft. And beside him was a young woman who could have been his business partner or girlfriend, smiling at me.
“Good morning Mr K.,” I said, without hesitation. “I’d like to order a David Coffee, please.”
“You’re back!” he cried, laughing. “David Coffee, right!”
The young woman looked slightly puzzled. Mr K. quickly filled her in (in Korean) and her expression changed to one of wonderment.
“You were here before?”
“Yes, three weeks ago.”
“Oh wow, and where have you been?”
“In Australia.”
“And you have come back to Korea?”
“Yes, on a stopover.”
“Ah, and how long will you be in Korea?”
“Just one day.”
“One day??”
“Yes, one day.”
(Actually, I would be leaving Seoul in less than 12 hours.)
“Oh, wow,” she said again. I could tell my story didn’t make much sense. Particularly as it was also apparent that Mr K. and I knew each other quite well. I mean, as well as you can know someone who’s made half-a-dozen coffees for you over the course of a three-day stopover. Which is obviously not very well at all expect in a retail sense.
I had made a habit of paying for my coffees using cash (as my European card did not seem to work in Korea) and while we were talking I’d handed over my 4500 won to the young woman. When she gave me my change, Mr K. (who had been busy making my specialty beverage) showed her something on the tablet they used to administer orders.
Suddenly, a little receipt came out of the tablet, and the young woman handed it to me.
“You see,” said Mr K, “it’s a David Coffee™!”
And just like every previous iteration, it was the best coffee I’d ever had in my life. Drinking it was like inhaling a caffeine-infused soup. I noted a weird energy rising from my belly to my brain with each sip. Not so much a glow as a ginormous feeling of wellbeing, an ultimate kind of travelling clarity.
I went back for two more of these cups of heavenly nectar that afternoon, and left Seoul in a sufficiently wired state that I managed to stay awake until 11pm, when my flight to Amsterdam taxied onto the runway without incident. It was then that I realised I wasn’t actually jetlagged at all: I was just over stopovers.
“See you next time!” I called to Mr K. as I walked past Coffee Roasters Bongneun Achim Co. for the last time, dragging my monstrously over-weight suitcase through the slushy snow towards the bus stop on Jong-ro.
Mr K. came running out, grasped my hand and shook it.
“Thank you so much, David,” he said. “See you again!”
And so it ended.
Five days later, President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in the Republic of Korea. While this attempt to override the democratic institutions of the country seems to have failed, it was a reminder that there’s not much in life that’s certain or reliable.
Except, perhaps, the thrill that comes from drinking a David Coffee™ while the world ends outside.
