The Story
Felt was founded in 2015 by Song Dae-woong and Kim Young-hyun, two former baristas who set up a roasting factory and opened a showroom in Seoul in September of that year. Their vision was as precise as the space they built: a place where people could concentrate entirely on coffee flavors, stripped of the visual noise and social theater that define most cafes.
The Felt aesthetic — minimalist to an almost radical degree, with no chairs facing each other and few tables, filled instead with the smell of coffee and carefully chosen music — was a deliberate design choice, not a trend. Studio fnt, the graphic design firm, handled the visual identity, and the result is one of the most distinctive brand presences in Korean specialty coffee.
Felt now supplies beans to over 300 coffee shops across South Korea and roasts approximately six tons of coffee per month, with three Seoul locations — one showroom and two cafes — plus a roasting facility that doubles as a training center. That scale makes it one of the most influential roasters in the Korean market, where specialty coffee has grown dramatically since 2015.
Sourcing & Relationships
Song and Kim travel to producing regions personally to evaluate and select green beans, establishing direct relationships with farms in Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Kenya. The sourcing model requires that every coffee sold be an authentic specialty grade — no filler lots, no commodity purchasing to hit price points.
The training center at the roasting facility reflects an educational commitment that extends the direct trade philosophy: developing palates and technical skill within the Korean market, not just supplying beans to it.
Roasting Philosophy
Felt roasts in-house, with profiles calibrated to preserve the character of well-sourced green coffee. The filter-forward orientation of the showroom shapes how roasting decisions are made: the question is always what makes a coffee interesting in a clean cup, before any accommodation for espresso or milk drinks.
The minimalist ethos extends into roasting — no unnecessary interventions, no stylistic flourishes that override origin character.
What to Try
The direct trade filter lots from Ethiopia and Costa Rica are where Felt’s sourcing philosophy is most legible — coffees where the quality of the green material and the restraint of the roasting combine to produce something genuinely expressive. The showroom on Cheonggyecheon is worth visiting for the space alone; it’s one of the more considered cafe environments in Seoul.