Beautiful Tea Museum - Seoul (Insadong)

While we were looking at some old silverware from street vendors, Jung and I literally stumbled upon the Areumdaun Cha Bangmulgwan (Beautiful Tea Museum). According to the sign below, it's a museum, gallery, tea shop and cafe all in one. Sounded intriguing enough so we went in.

The museum is in a renovated hanok, an old, traditional Korean house.

The museum exhibits and sells over 200 different varieties of teas from Korea, China, Japan, Sri Lanka, India and Europe. They have a wide range of green, black, brown, herbal and flower teas. This is the tea shop, where you can buy different types of tea as well as tea sets. I loved this floating candle decoration in the center.

Visitors can enjoy sitting in the central garden, where they can view the rest of the albeit tiny museum while drinking some tea.

Here's the front cover of the menu. According to the front cover, they've been around since 1998. Why have I not known about this place till now???

We got the Teastory Greentea Waffle, a crispy green tea flavored waffle, topped with bananas, whipped cream, blueberry jam and two scoops of ice cream, to share. This waffle single-handedly redeemed Korean waffles for me. I could eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner any day of the week.

We shared the Chinese Pu-erh tea, which is an after-fermented tea.

Now why I love this place so much is because each table has an electric kettle so that you can boil water for yourself. I always feel so bad asking for more hot water so having your own supply of hot water is sooo convenient.

They gave us a little plate with two green tea rice cakes with some honey, just like they did at O'Sulloc Tea House.

This is my new favorite snack now. Nothing beats the yumminess that is crispy, hot rice cake with honey. They broiled the green tea rick cake till it was crispy on the outside and soft and chewy in the inside.

The Beautiful Tea Museum also exhibits porcelain artwork by young ceramists as well.

How come none of my pieces looked like this in my pottery class?

Here's how to get here: From Exit 6 of Anguk Station (Subway Line No. 3), walk about 40 meters to Insadong-daero (between Crown Bakery and GS 25 Convenience Store). Proceed about 400 meters, and turn right at the Golden Jewelry Store.

Beautiful Tea Museum

#193-1 Insadong Chonglo-gu

Seoul, Korea

(02)735-6678

www.tmuseum.co.kr