Doors That Open

Countless Doors

A hundred years ago, coffee was a strange drink that only a few people knew. Then came dabang, then instant coffee mix, then cafés. Along the way, countless doors opened. And so a foreign custom slipped into the closest corners of our lives. Through the small doors we open every day without a thought, a hundred-year story has been flowing all along. Behind the ordinary door you push open tomorrow morning, this warm history, carried across the sea, will be waiting for you.

Why?The first glowing dot is Gwanhun-dong, Seoul, in 1927, where the first dabang run by a Korean is said to have opened. After that, red dots (dabang) and amber dots (cafés) light up and go out just as the license records say. A dot that flashes white is a shop that just opened. The number at the top is how many doors (dabang and cafés) were open at that moment. At the end you see today's seeds traveling by ship from Brazil, Vietnam and Ethiopia.

Learn moreThis scene is staged: a hundred years are squeezed into 26 seconds, and the routes are simplified. The first dabang's spot is approximate, since only the neighborhood is known. One survey says a person in Korea drinks about 405 cups of coffee a year, more than twice the world average of about 152 (Euromonitor, 2023). In 2024, Korea brought in about 200,000 tons of coffee.

When

2026 → 2026