, Title, Period, Venue, Contents, Date, Attach 상세정보 입니다.
Title What a Brew-tiful day!
Period 2024-08-20 - 2024-11-10
Venue Special Exhibition Hall 2 (NFMK Seoul)

poster

  • Title: What a Brew-tiful day!
  • Period: 20 Aug 2024 (Tue) – 10 Nov 2024 (Sun)
  • Venue: Special Exhibition Hall 2
  • Exhibition Contents: Korea's Coffee Culture
  • Composition
    Prologue. Coffee?
    Part 1. Daily Life × Coffee
    Part 2. Coffee in Mind
    2-1. With Coffee
    2-2. Coffee of My Life
    Eplilogue. Yes, Coffee!

Exhibition Overview

I 'surely' have some coffee on the way to work. I 'definitely' enjoy coffee after lunch. I drink coffee 'together' when I meet with others. It seems like I 'constantly' have coffee.

You ask: “Do you like coffee?” I immediately say “Of course,” but after thinking about it, realize there are many things that taste better than coffee does. “So why drink it?” comes the next question. I can't think of a good answer. It's just what my body craves when the right time comes.

According to surveys, Koreans say coffee ranks second among all the food and beverage items they like, with cabbage kimchi in first place and steamed rice coming in third. Rice, kimchi and coffee are always grouped together. Over the past century, coffee has become part of the traditional Korean diet.

This exhibition introduces the coffee drinking habits of Koreans. Korea is well known as a place where coffee is consumed in large amounts. Why do the Korean people drink it so much?

Perhaps you might think about having a cup of coffee after you leave this exhibition hall, filled with so many different coffee-related stories.

A cup of coffee sweetens up the lives, yesterday, today and tomorrow.

* Source: Korea Health Industry Development Institute, 2021, National Nutritional Statistics

entry


Prologue. Coffee?


There is a wide range of coffee choices in Korea. Grocery store shelves offer dozens of instant coffee mix, drip coffee, brewed coffee, and canned coffee products. Coffee drinks with unimaginable names fill the menus at coffee shops. Among the many choices, what should the Koreans select?

entry


Part 1. Daily Life × Coffee


Korean per capita coffee consumption is 405 cups a year, over twice the global average.* The prominent Korean politician Yu Gil-jun (1856–1914) saw how Westerners consumed coffee like water. He wrote: “They drink it the way Koreans drink sungnyung(a beverage made from crispy rice crust, known as 'nurungji' in Korean, commonly enjoyed after a meal).” How shocked he would be if he saw Koreans today. The scene of coee drinking naturally became part of Korean daily life some time ago. Of course, how Koreans drink it has changed. People don't preparing it themselves by boiling the water and brewing the coffee as much as they used to. Instead they are open seen holding a cup while on the go around town. The kinds of people who enjoy coffee and the places where coffee is consumed have evolved over time. However, Koreans were favorably accepted coffee from the start, and it naturally became part of their eating and drinking habits. Coffee drinkers were prominent in society in specfic time periods, set social trends, and encouraged romanticism. The coffee drinking venues were at the center of the “hot places to be.”The process of adopting coffee, a beverage that comes from foreign countries, in Korea is examined here by time period.
* Source: Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation, 2023 Food Industry Statistics

※ Materials: White porcelain cup and saucer set adorned with the plum blossom design, Powdered coffee is mixed with ground ginseng and sold as a product targeting Joseon tourists, The U.S. military combat rations and coffee that Koreans could try etc

entry


Part 2. Coffee in Mind


Today, expression “Let's get some coffee” is more open heard as a greeting in Korea than “Let's get something to eat” is. Of course, it does not matter whether the beverage in question is instant coffee mix, iced Americano, specialty coffee, or capsule coffee. Coffee allows us to remember things in the past, dream about the future, and console us about the present. In addition, it weaves you, me, and all of us together. The human relations linked through coffee are exhibited through the stories of various people.

※ Materials: Photographs of dates and weddings, A television used in a Korean dabang, Coffee-flavored chewing gum, Mom's coffee cup etc

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Epilogue. Yes, Coffee!

Twenty grams of coffee beans are required to make a single cup of coffee. Koreans typically consume several cups of coffee each day, so how much would that total in our lives? Energy to start out the day, motivation to prepare for the future, a medium for recalling former times and people, a means for linking conversation with things going forward, an excuse for taking a break study, work or child rearing...

The meaning of coffee is neither decidedly light nor overly heavy. Perhaps that is why Koreans drink it.

Today, too, nevertheless, It's conclude this exhibition by celebrating the day of coffee drinking.

entry


Materials

White porcelain cup and saucer set adorned with the plum blossom design White porcelain cup and saucer set adorned with the plum blossom design
Korean Empire
Coreana Cosmetics Museum

The coffee cups and saucers are emblazoned with the plum blossom design, which symbolizes the Korean Empire. Joseon opened her ports to outside nations in 1876, and the senior royal family (subsequently imperial family) members began to accept Western eating and drinking habits from that time. They followed Western dining etiquette when they met with diplomatic officials, missionaries, and other Westerners of importance, ordering Western-style dining ware for use at official banquets. These porcelain dishes were mostly made by Pillivuyt of France or Noritake of Japan.
Ginseng coffee Powdered coffee is mixed with ground ginseng and sold as a product targeting Joseon tourists

Ginseng coffee
Early 20th century

Korean ginseng was an important export product, which was particularly popular in China and Japan. Thus, ginseng coffee was developed by mixing ginseng powder and coffee powder. This became one of the souvenirs for Japanese tourists visiting Joseon.
C-ration The U.S. military combat rations and coffee that Koreans could try

C-ration
After 1945

The term “C-ration” refers to the portable meals of canned foods that the U.S. military provided its troops from World War II through the Vietnam War. These meals included separate packages of such items as ham, cookies, biscuits, salt, sugar and coffee. The end of World War II in 1945 allowed Korea to be liberated from Japanese colonial rule. Thereafter, U.S. troops were stationed in Korea, and C-rations and other food items from the U.S. military found their way into Korea's civilian population. This was the first time for many Koreans to experience instant coffee.
Instant coffee that was popular in the 1970s and 1980s Instant coffee that was popular in the 1970s and 1980s
1970s-1980s
Arirang Archives
photo Korean dabang, used as the venue for meeting one's prospective marriage partner for the first time
1970s
Courtesy of Jeong Nan-young

In Korea, the dabang was used as the place where the parents of ordinary families would arrange for their children to meet their future spouses.
Miroku Mom's coffee cup
1990s
Courtesy of Song Hyang-ja

Coffee became a medium for remembering someone.
Miroku Coffee drunk while watching a relay sports broadcast as a group at a dabang
1990
Arirang archives

A television could always be found at a Korean dabang. Korean citizens would gather at the local dabang whenever there was an important sports event or major news incident.

Date 2024-08-20
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