Korea

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.