Since sealing its borders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, North Korea has pressed ahead with the construction of high-rise apartments and commercial facilities in Pyongyang while tightening its control over markets and foreign culture. It has reined in the markets (jangmadang), where the donju (the newly rich) had held the upper hand, and reorganized the economy under state leadership.

Since the pandemic, nearly all new cafés and restaurants have been state-led.

It was in this climate that Mirai Reserve, an upscale café modeled on Starbucks Reserve, opened.

After Kim Jong Un came to power, North Korea aggressively pursued the urban redevelopment of Pyongyang.

Against this backdrop, Kumrung Coffee Shop, a stylish café popular with affluent young people, opened in Pyongyang.

Korean Wave (Hallyu) culture also spread among young people. However, after the 2020 pandemic, North Korean authorities tightened restrictions, driven by the Kim Jong Un regime’s anxiety that South Korean culture was eroding the loyalty of the young.

As a result, it is unclear whether stylish coffee shops were able to stay in business.

Following the food crisis of the "Arduous March", Jangmadang (local markets) sprang up across North Korea, the communist rationing system collapsed, and a market economy emerged.

However, even after the authorities declared the end of the Arduous March, international aid continued.

Among these aid organizations, the Swiss relief agency ADRA opened North Korea's pioneering cafe in 2005.

Subsequently, during the era of Kim Jong Un, who succeeded Kim Jong Il, cafes opened one after another in Pyongyang.

Around 1998, the North Korean authorities began replacing the slogan "Arduous March" with new ones such as "Forced March" and "Building a Strong and Prosperous Nation," and they are said to have declared the end of the Arduous March around 2000.

As the jangmadang markets expanded, food began to circulate through channels other than the state rationing system.

South and North Korea drew closer and began to cooperate economically.

Against this backdrop, South Korean instant coffee sold in the jangmadang began to be consumed in North Korea as well.

In the late 1980s, regimes across the communist bloc underwent rapid transitions one after another. With the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, North Korea—which had long relied on support from Eastern Bloc socialist nations—plunged into economic chaos and faced an acute food crisis.

Kim Jong-il is said to have set out a new policy for operations against South Korea in 1976, ordering that agents be thoroughly "localized."

Localization did not simply mean learning to speak a foreign language. It meant enabling agents to assume the identities of Japanese, South Koreans, or others and blend into the societies of those countries.

In the 1960s, North Korea sought to advance its domestic construction through the Chollima Movement while simultaneously attempting to overthrow the South Korean government to achieve Korean unification. 

As part of this effort, it executed a plan to establish an underground revolutionary organization in South Korea, instigate a revolution led by workers, peasants, youth, and students, and provide support from the North. 

Following the armistice that brought an end to the active fighting of the Korean War, North Korea rebuilt its devastated land in a remarkably short period, aided by a coalition of communist nations led by the Soviet Union.

In 1956, however, tensions flared between the Soviet Union and China, splintering what had been a collaborative communist bloc. 

With this alliance beginning to fracture, the regime of Kim Il-sung—originally established with robust Soviet backing—started pivoting toward self-reliance. 

After the Korean War armistice, in order to rebuild the devastated country, North Korea received engineers from the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern European countries.

In particular, some Eastern European countries have a coffee-drinking culture, and people from those countries also drank coffee in North Korea.

Rebuild from devastation after the Korean War

 The devastation was close to total. 

Under Japanese rule before World War II, coffee shops operated in Pyongyang, North Korea, and coffee was consumed there. 

However, with the start of the Pacific War, Japan prohibited the import of coffee. Subsequently, under Soviet rule, coffee may have been consumed in some Soviet occupation facilities, but tea was the main beverage. Then came the Korean War. American soldiers on the North Korean front drank coffee on a daily basis.

Start of Korean War