I recently visited my 43rd country. South Korea.
One of the things I do wherever I go is find the best coffee. And, by extension, the best coffee shops.
My favorite up until now was a Japanese coffee shop in Auckland, New Zealand called Slow Koi, where they serve up the best single origin coffees from Guatemala, Bolivia, Kenya, and the like.
The coffee shop was all black. Black counters, black coffee mugs, black chairs, and tables. And black floors and walls. With soft sounds of Japanese lo-fi playing on an all-black sound system. It was sleek. And the coffee was perfect. By day three of my trip there in 2025, the baristas knew me as a regular.
Other favorite coffee shops include a small coffee shop in Panama City, where the owner let me try small batch coffees he bought at auction. Arista de Café in Antigua, Guatemala, where they have five types of pour over options. Vive Café in Buenos Aires, serving up specialty coffee from Colombia. And a small coffee shop in Kigali serving locally harvested and roasted beans, where I was greeted with smiles each morning.
I was excited to visit Seoul, in part because it’s known to have some of the coolest coffee shops in the world. I was determined to find the best one, even if it meant three coffees a day.
I sampled Costa Rican, Kenyan, Panamanian, and Papua New Guinea coffees from several high-end coffee shops, each one slicker than the last. One even served pumpkin pie, which is my favorite dessert.
On day three of our trip, though, we found a small coffee shop called Sim Coffee House, located on a back street in the Jung District of Seoul.
The owner of the shop, Mr. Sim Jaeyong, is the only one working there. A former architect turned coffee connoisseur.
The shop is decorated with a variety of coffee pour-over apparatuses. Artistic coffee cups and saucers. Books. And other nostalgic-looking items.
There are no croissants or other pastries for sale. No sandwiches or sodas. Sim serves one thing.
High-end single-origin coffee from around the world. Sourced from farms in the best places coffee is grown.
But Sim Jaeyong doesn’t just make the coffee by hand.
He discusses it with you. How strong do you like your coffee? What flavor notes do you prefer? Why a certain coffee won’t taste good if made the wrong way. He asks you to smell the coffee every step of the process.
He delights in his trade and is excited to share his expertise, with a charming, genuine smile each step of the way.
He brought us over samples of a special espresso he made. He shared some water infused with Agarwood.
But it isn’t just about the coffee for Sim.
It’s about human connection. It’s about friendship and love.
Using Google Translate to communicate, he asked us about where we live. Who we are. Our names. What we did. About our families.
We sat there each morning, enjoying the delicious coffee and receiving so much love and kindness.
Before our last day left, Sim asked us to sign his guest book and leave a note. I wrote a note in English, then looked up how to write “love” in Korean, as I put that before our names.
He gave an approving smile and responded with the caring, joyful look on his face we had enjoyed each morning.
As I walked away that last day, tears of hope filled my eyes.
I traveled to the other side of the world to meet a higher power. Sim Jaeyong is what we think of when we think of Godliness walking in human form.
Kind, caring, loving, giving.
Using coffee as his tool. And as a powerful metaphor.
In part of a short writing about how to make Korean drip coffee, “The Theory of Sim Jaeyong Coffee”, Sim wrote about how the best hand drip coffee comes down to human judgment.
Something that I think has more to do with humans than the best way to extract coffee:
Coffee disappears
The moment is consumed
But judgment remains
What this book hopes to leave behind is not flavor
But judgment
When to stop
I began to imagine what our world would be like if each of us emulated Mr. Sim Jaeyong.
What would America become if each of us viewed the other as special? As holy beings. Rather than tools to overpower.
How would things look if we cared about each other the way Sim does? To see each other as critical pieces to the puzzle called humanity. To stop judging each other so harshly.
I began to dream about how the world would look if we began to value human beings more than pieces of property. If we valued “the other” not as separate but as a part of the whole.
Imagine a world where difference is viewed as beautiful and not threatening.
Where war is the last of the last of the last resorts and not the first, second or third options.
Sim Jaeyong reminded me how beautiful we as humans have the capacity to be. To love without expectation. To care without ego. To respect without requiring sameness.
Other than the birth of my three children, the closest I’ve ever come to meeting God was at Sim Coffee House.
I will be forever grateful for the special reminder to lead with love.
Thank you, Sim. I’ll see you again someday.
Jeffrey Kass is a lawyer, award-winning author, law professor, speaker and thought leader on race and ethnicity. He’s also an avid coffee enthusiast and fashion connoisseur. Some of his articles can be found at https://medium.com/@jeffreykass, his website www.jeffreykassglobal.com and on instagram @jeffreykass01.
