Songjeong tea café with stairwell wave sounds: Suwolgyeonghwa, Busan

I heard there was a tea specialty café in Songjeong, Busan, that even blends its own tea and won a Blue Ribbon award — so I went to check it out.

Suwolgyeonghwa (수월경화)

Where is Suwolgyeonghwa, and where do you park?

It's a 1-minute walk from Songjeong Beach. You can park in the piloti parking on the building's 1st floor, and if it's full, there's the Songjeong Blue Parking Lot right in front.

The café is on the 3rd and 4th floors, and you order on the 4th floor.

The 4th-floor ocean view and the Songjeong beach train

The 4th floor of Suwolgyeonghwa is done up in warm wood interiors with soft lighting here and there, giving the whole space a serene feel. The high ceilings made it feel wonderfully open.

Since Songjeong Beach is right out front, you get a proper ocean view 🌊 The windows are so wide the whole sea fits in your sight without feeling cramped 🩵 The beach train even passes by, which makes it an even more special ocean-view café, I think.

Even if you're not seated right at the window, you get an ocean view no matter where you sit!

The tea-brewing tools and an hourglass

Suwolgyeonghwa's tea menu is mostly caffeine-free

Being a tea specialty spot, there are so many varieties, right? Mellomance, Spring Ripples, Lemon Sunset — names that spark curiosity from the start 🤓 I don't handle caffeine well, so I loved that so many teas here are caffeine-free.

From traditional teas like ssanghwa-cha (herbal tonic tea) and sujeonggwa (cinnamon-persimmon punch) to something as unusual as tarak-cha (milk tea). Not the kind of menu you'd see at a typical café, so it was fun just browsing and choosing. After much deliberation, I ordered the Lemon Sunset and Hojigabae.

I'd already stuffed myself with hotel breakfast bread, but how could I resist that visual…? Since I wanted to try a bit of everything, I picked the signature Dalbodre Box.

Honestly, I drink coffee often but not tea that much, so choosing was tough — but being able to smell the tea and read the detailed descriptions really helped me decide.

Teabags for sale and the free-teabag review event

Wait, what's this now… why is it so pretty… Could anyone walk past this entrance without going in? I found myself stepping inside as if hypnotized, haha.

It turned out to be a space selling teabags. They'd make a great Busan travel souvenir or gift for a friend. Honey tip ✨ Write a receipt review and you get one free teabag — join in :D

Me, every time: 'I should check out the guestbook' — and then forgetting 🙋🏻‍♀️

Wave sounds playing in the stairwell

I kept hearing wave sounds around the building and wondered what it was — turned out it was coming from the stairs. There's a speaker constantly playing the sound of waves. Once you sit down, the wave sound lingers faintly in your ears, and hearing it while looking at the real sea made it feel like actual ocean sound, haha — so cool!

The 3rd floor faces the sea head-on

The 3rd floor at Suwolgyeonghwa has the same classical East Asian feel and open ocean view as the 4th. The sea definitely feels closer here. If the 4th floor felt like looking down at the sea, the 3rd floor feels like facing it head-on.

Wooden furniture, soft lighting, and thin curtains too 🤎 turns out I love this kind of mood…

They could have fit in more tables, but by spacing the seats out wider, the room feels even calmer and more relaxed.

The floor-seating area would be great for bringing babies along 👶🏻

I have no idea how much thought the owner poured into the tea and interior… At first I just thought the window was circular, but looking again, it might actually be shaped like the moon 🌕

How the Lemon Sunset tea and hojigabae taste

As a bread lover, I already knew the dessert box would be right up my alley, but seeing it look exactly like the photo still got me excited… Still, let's calmly start with the tea first.

The Lemon Sunset tea blends hibiscus and lemon harmoniously. The scent was strongly lemony, but once I drank it, the lemon flavor was subtle — light and easy to drink.

They give you a tea info sheet like this, and I loved how it described the flavors in detail — matching what I actually tasted. It even lists the water amount and steeping time for hot and iced versions, which will help when brewing it at home.

This is the Hojigabae my partner ordered — a coffee drink with hojicha and café latte topped with cream. Cream-topped lattes are usually pretty sweet, but this one had a savory latte base with cream that wasn't too sweet, so even my partner, who can't handle sweets, enjoyed it 😊

The Dalbodre Box: what to eat first

It's a tea specialty shop, but as a bread lover, the dessert was what I looked forward to most. They told us to eat counter-clockwise starting from the injeolmi (rice cake coated in bean powder).

• Injeolmi
• Sulbbang (rice cake)
• Angbutter monaka
• Financier
• Ganache monaka

I think it's probably in order of increasing sweetness!

The injeolmi was savory and chewy. The puffed rice on top gave it a crunchy texture in between bites that I loved. From traditional sweets (injeolmi, black rice sulbbang) to desserts blending old and new (financier, monaka) — it was great being able to enjoy a range of unusual desserts all at once. It comes in a wooden box instead of a regular plate, so it would make a nice gift too 🎁

If you're tired of the crowds at Haeundae or Gwangalli, I recommend Suwolgyeonghwa, a fusion tea house café right in front of Songjeong Beach with an ocean view 🍵