EDIYA COFFEE, a low-cost coffee rival to Starbucks, has raised its coffee prices since its founding, reaching around 3,200 won as of 2026.

Mega MGC COFFEE, on the other hand, has emerged as a representative of low-cost coffee.

Starbucks is currently priced higher, EDIYA is mid-priced, and MGC is mid-priced.

MEGA MGC COFFEE is a coffee franchise with roots in Princess Cafe Anhouse, founded by Ha Hyun-woong, and shaved ice chain Pasiya.

Starbucks opened in front of Ewha Womans University in 1999 and was a huge success.
This sparked a cafe boom in Korea as well.

The first Starbucks store opened in Seoul in 1999.
The man who drove Starbucks in Korea was Jeong Yongjin, current Chairman of the Shinsegae Group.

In the early 1990s, newly coined words "orange tribe" were aimed at criticizing excessive consumption amid material prosperity — but when the 1997 foreign exchange crisis dealt a devastating blow to the Korean economy, the atmosphere of the late 1990s changed 180 degrees.
The shock of the crisis dismantled the Orange Tribe culture in the following ways:

The 1997 foreign exchange crisis was a massive event that struck all of Asia.

In the second half of the 20th century, Korean coffee culture was centered around the dabang (tea house). However, in the 1990s, traditional dabangs began to decline,
and coffee shops and cafes began to open more frequently.

In 1987, South Korea's military regime ended, and the country became a democracy with a directly elected president. The 1988 Seoul Olympics symbolized South Korea's economic development.

The liberal atmosphere and economic development brought about by this democratization also brought changes to the Korean coffee industry.

After the Korean War, society gradually stabilized. Instant coffee, brought in by the U.S. military, became widespread, and so did coffee.
This marked the development of Korea's unique "dabang" culture.
In 1956, "Hakrim Chaya" opened in Dongseong-dong, where Seoul National University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was located.

Shortly after the Japanese colonial period, the Japanese opened a coffee shop (Kissaten) on Jonggok Pass in Myeongdong and began serving coffee.
In Seoul, a two-story salon run by Japanese people called Cheongmokdang appeared, and in 1914, the Joseon Hotel was built.
This served as the highest-class hotel and coffee shop during the Japanese colonial period.
By this time, Western culture had become widespread, and intellectuals who had studied in Japan and the West had established their own cultural sphere, creating ideal conditions for the birth of coffee shops.

Around 1900, while coffee shops were in their infancy in Japan, around 1902, French-German Antoinette Sontag opened the Korean Peninsula's first Western-style hotel, the Sontag Hotel, in Jeongdong, Seoul.
She entered Seoul in 1885 accompanying Karl Ivanovich Bebel, the first Russian ambassador to Korea.
She was said to be Bebel's sister-in-law and served as a liaison between the Russian Legation and the Imperial Court.

During the Meiji era, many coffee shops and restaurants roasted their own coffee beans in-house, a practice we now call "house roasting." This was because, compared to today, coffee drinking was not a common practice, coffee establishments were few, and there was little demand for coffee beans.

However, starting around 1911, the number of establishments serving coffee gradually increased, leading to a rise in demand for coffee bean roasting services.

How was coffee roasting carried out during the Belle Époque in Europe, which supported Japan's early coffee shop culture?

Before 1920, there were almost no "specialized coffee roasters" like we have today in Japan.

At the time, it was common for coffee shops to roast their own beans (in-house roasting) or for import food stores and tea merchants to roast them in-store.