Seongsu summer café with a soy milk latte: iced brewing at T Coffee

Where is T Coffee?

T Coffee (티 커피)

I visited T Coffee, a café located between Konkuk University station and Seongsu station. It's a café in the basement of a building. My friend and I went in through the door leading straight down to T Coffee, so we used the stairs, but there's also a separate door that leads to the pizza place upstairs. That entrance to the pizza place has an elevator, though I couldn't confirm whether access is guaranteed for wheelchair users.

T Coffee opening hours

T Coffee is open weekdays from 9am to 8pm, and Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 8pm. With a university district nearby and lots of tourists visiting Seongsu, it seems there aren't any fixed closing days.

Inside T Coffee: cool but not freezing in summer

Walking into T Coffee, the first thing I liked was that it was comfortably cool. Of course it's summer and really hot these days, so having the AC on is nice, but if the temperature is set too low it gets cold and you can even catch a cold. My friend who came to the café with me actually had a summer cold that turned into pneumonia. But T Coffee wasn't too cold — it was just pleasantly cool. It was quiet enough to be a good space for chatting or focusing on a bit of work.

T Coffee menu: decaf, oat milk and soy milk options

T Coffee obviously sells coffee as its main thing. Besides coffee, they also had caffeinated drinks like matcha latte and oolong tea. If you need a caffeine boost during an exhausting midsummer moment, T Coffee is a good spot to recharge. For people sensitive to caffeine, there's a decaf bean option too. In line with current trends, you can swap regular milk for oat milk or soy milk, making this place friendly to those who are lactose intolerant or vegan. Besides caffeinated drinks, there were also bakery desserts like cinnamon rolls and scones.

Watching the brewing station at T Coffee

One great thing about T Coffee is that there's a brewing station. You can order Ethiopia Guji Gogugu Natural as brewed coffee, and right next to the ordering counter is a brewing station where you can watch the coffee being extracted. I ordered the Ethiopia Guji Gogugu Natural as iced brewing coffee and went straight over to watch the brewing process.

This is a shot of the Ethiopia Guji Gogugu Natural being brewed. As the coffee was extracted through brewing, a really great aroma filled the air.

Iced brewing coffee and a caffe latte with soy milk

Once both coffees were finished, they were served to our table. I had ordered the Ethiopia Guji Gogugu Natural as iced brewing coffee, and my friend ordered a caffe latte but switched the milk to soy milk. But it's not exactly a secret that after finishing the caffe latte in one go, they then ordered a regular milk drink iced as well. With the weather this hot, craving something cold for hydration and body temperature regulation is unavoidable, I guess.

A caffe latte made with soy milk. I don't know exactly what beans are used for the espresso-based drinks like americano and caffe latte, but it was a nutty, rich espresso that paired really well with the soy milk. It's a cool, enjoyable way to get a caffeine boost with T Coffee's caffe latte.

The Ethiopia Guji Gogugu Natural I ordered is a specialty coffee, and its cup notes were listed as Grape, Tropical Fruit, Stone Fruit, and Chocolate. To figure out exactly what 'Stone Fruit' meant, I looked it up and found out it refers to drupes like peaches, apricots, plums, and cherries. Overall it was a coffee with fruity sweetness and acidity, and it was excellent to drink iced in summer. It used to be that Ethiopia Guji meant mostly Mormora or Sidamo, but now that Korea's coffee culture has developed so much, it's fun to be able to try such a variety of beans.