City Hall Station dessert café with pu-erh choco tea: Center Coffee

I'd had a light drink or two after work that day, and once you're done drinking, something sweet starts calling your name, right? So I was trying to figure out where to find a good City Hall Station café dessert spot, and it turned out there was a fairly big café just a short walk along Cheonggyecheon. I strolled a bit and found my way there.

Inside Center Coffee Gwanghwamun: what is the basement floor like?

Center Coffee Gwanghwamun is on the basement floor (B1) of a building at 136 Sejong-daero, Jung-gu, Seoul. When I plugged in the address, it led me into a huge office building, and I was like, is this really it?

Since it said basement floor, I took the escalator down, and the atmosphere completely changed the moment I descended. Upstairs felt like a building full of offices, but downstairs there were restaurants and cafés — it felt like the basement food court of a department store.

At first I didn't realize how big it was, but once inside, the seating stretched all the way to the back. With so many seats, I don't think you'd need to worry about not finding a spot. That said, on weekdays there might be a wait since office workers fill the place. Actually, even though I visited around 8pm, there were quite a few people still in suits, haha.

Center Coffee Gwanghwamun menu: which drinks and desserts are on offer?

You can order at the counter at Center Coffee Gwanghwamun, but there's also a separate kiosk.

If you want to see photos of the menu while ordering, the kiosk is probably the way to go. There was a wide variety of drink types — coffee, lattes, non-coffee drinks, teas, and more. Instead of your usual lattes, there were unusual ones like red cordial, mugwort latte, and orange bianco. Each one came with a good description, so if something catches your interest, it's worth ordering.

As a City Hall Station café good for trying various desserts, they had plenty of light options that pair well with coffee — financiers, pound cakes, butter bars, and more.

There was also a yogurt bowl and a ham cheese panini, good for a light meal substitute.

Prices were a bit up there, but the pure milk fresh cream cake and the Matilda chocolat cake both looked large and clearly sweet-tooth-satisfying just from the look of them.

The kiosk let me check what each item looked like too. I love iced americanos and tea, so while deciding what to get, I picked the Better Than Choco. I genuinely want to go back just for this again. Ever heard of a chocolate-flavored tea?

After ordering, you get a buzzer pager and go pick it up when it rings. The staff were all kind. I also liked that they told me in advance, when I was ordering, that closing time was 9pm and checked if that was fine with me.

Honest review of Better Than Choco tea and the chocolate baton financier

What I ordered at Center Coffee Gwanghwamun was an iced americano, the Better Than Choco, and a chocolate baton financier — three things total.

Everything looked good and came out clean and neat. The Better Than Choco, which was described as a pu-erh base with a chocolate scent, was already giving off that smell before I even took a sip. I think that's when I really understood what "chocolate scent" actually means, haha. Just from the smell, you could probably pass it off as chocolate milk.

This is a tea you don't see often elsewhere, which is exactly what I loved about this City Hall Station café, Center Coffee. Normally, a tea bag steeped in hot water feels like a waste of money, but I ordered it to cut back on caffeine — and if it's this kind of tea, I'd pay whatever it costs. If you like tea, give it a try.

The iced americano had a moderate acidity and, as expected, a nice bean aroma too. You really can't skip it when ordering something sweet on the side.

It wasn't the trendy crisp-outside-chewy-inside style — the texture was more like a crumbly pound cake. It wasn't too sweet so it went down easy, and every time I bit into a chocolate chip on top, the rich cocoa flavor was really good.

Why Center Coffee Gwanghwamun works as a City Hall Station dessert café

I set out looking for something sweet and ended up falling for the tea first, then falling again for the crumbly financier — I ate well and left satisfied. If you're looking for dessert around City Hall Station like I was, I recommend Center Coffee. Good seating, nice atmosphere, great to drop by after a meal.