Gomae Coffee, Yongin Hanok Cafe: Cream Coffee & Juak

On a sticky summer afternoon, I headed out to Gomae Coffee, a cozy hanok cafe in Yongin that locals love for its signature cream coffee.

I used to drive out to this Yongin hanok cafe all the time, back when I had just started enjoying long drives for the sake of driving itself. Gomae Cream Coffee was the drink that kept pulling me back, a black sesame cream coffee I genuinely looked forward to on the way over, rain or shine, weekday or weekend.

Then one visit, the flavor felt slightly off, and I quietly stopped going for a long stretch. A single stop last year brought me back for one cup, and today the craving for that exact taste pulled me in again, so I found myself driving down the same familiar road toward Giheung without really planning to.

This is one of the older hanok cafes in the Yongin area, open long enough that a wave of newer, flashier hanok cafes has since opened around it. What’s kept me coming back over the years isn’t novelty — it’s that one drink, and the fact that the space still gets maintained carefully enough that it doesn’t feel dated walking in.

1. Finding the Courtyard Behind Gomae Coffee’s Hanok Walls

The cafe is built across a cluster of connected hanok buildings, and the moment you step onto the black-stained wooden deck, a tall tree takes up the entire center of the courtyard. Woven rattan lantern shades hang low in its branches, lit even in the middle of the day, strung there alongside the bare string lights running between buildings and looped along the dark tiled eaves overhead.

Look closely at the tree and you’ll notice the lanterns aren’t just decoration hung on wires — they’re tucked directly into the branches, close enough that the leaves brush against the woven shades. It’s a small detail, but it’s the kind of thing that makes this courtyard photograph differently depending on which angle you catch it from.

2. Is the Outdoor Terrace Worth Sitting In This Time of Year?

Not yet, based on my visit. The air had just started turning cooler in the mornings, so I thought I’d try the outdoor terrace for a change instead of heading straight inside. Sweat was already running down my back within a minute of standing still, which told me the season hadn’t actually shifted as much as the calendar suggested.

Wait until the temperature drops below 25°C before planning an outdoor seat here — the covered benches look shaded in photos, but the open courtyard around them still catches strong midday sun through early autumn.

3. Meeting Gomae Coffee’s Resident Orange Cat

A bright orange cat has claimed this hanok as its own, even though a small sign near the entrance explains it’s technically a stray and the cafe isn’t responsible if it scratches or bites anyone who tries to pet it. I found it stretched flat out on the gravel, completely unbothered by the heat that had just chased me back toward the shade.

I shifted my weight slightly to get a better angle for a photo, and the gravel under my shoes crunched. It didn’t fully wake, just tucked its head down tighter against the black wood paneling and kept sleeping, one ear twitching toward the sound. My husband and I lingered longer than most visitors probably would, waiting for a cleaner angle before we finally gave up and let it rest.

If anyone in your group has a cat allergy, it’s worth planning around the outdoor seating specifically, since the resident cat tends to stay near the courtyard and terrace rather than wandering through the indoor rooms.

4. What Should You Order at Gomae Coffee?

The Gomae Cream Coffee is the one drink worth building your visit around: espresso and milk over ice, finished with a thick layer of black sesame cream on top. If you haven’t spent time in Korean cafes before, cream coffee is worth knowing about going in — it’s been one of the country’s longest-running cafe trends, with versions built on black sesame, corn, or roasted grain cream showing up on menus across the country for years. Gomae Coffee’s take on it is one of the originals in this style, not a copy of a newer trend, which is part of why regulars keep comparing every newer version back to this one.

For something lighter, the Einspänner and the non-coffee options — mugwort latte, matcha latte, roasted grain latte — cover more traditionally Korean flavors if you’d rather skip espresso altogether. The muscat ades are the closest thing to a cold, fruity option on the menu, and they only come iced.

If coffee is more your focus than the cream drinks, the cafe also runs a small rotating hand drip menu of about seven single-origin beans, priced anywhere from roughly 6,500 to 10,000 KRW depending on the lot, including a rum barrel-aged Colombian option that sits at the top of that range. A handwritten sign and a row of glass jars let you smell the beans before deciding, which is a nice touch if you can’t read the Korean tasting notes listed next to each one.

For dessert, look for Gaeseong juak — a traditional Korean fried glutinous rice cake, historically associated with the city of Gaeseong and once served at celebrations and weddings. Here it comes glazed and topped with things like chocolate and raspberry, roasted nuts, or pistachio, alongside a small tiramisu-style cup dessert. If a topping catches your eye, order it as soon as you arrive — these display pieces sell out over the course of the day.

5. Tasting the Black Sesame Cream Coffee Again

My cream coffee arrived next to my husband’s Americano, the dark sesame cream sitting thick on top exactly the way I remembered it from years back, when I used to compare it favorably to a well-known cafe in Gangneung that built its whole reputation on the same style of drink. At some point after that early run of visits, the flavor shifted just enough that I noticed, and reading a few other visitors describe the same shift online convinced me it wasn’t just me being overly picky about a drink I loved.

I still came back for takeout more than once after that, mostly out of loyalty to how good the drink used to be rather than complete confidence it had returned to form. These days, enough other cafes around the country have picked up the same black sesame cream style that it’s harder not to compare Gomae Coffee’s version against the competition, which takes a little of the shine off a drink I used to consider genuinely unmatched. It’s still good. It’s just no longer the only place doing it.

6. What Does the Inside of Gomae Coffee Actually Look Like?

Two very different moods sit under the same roofline, and which one you end up in shapes the whole visit. One room runs on caramel-brown leather sofas, a low wooden coffee table, and soft ceiling pendant lights — closer to a living room than a traditional tea house, and the room where most groups end up settling in for a while with their drinks and their phones.

A separate hallway-style room keeps the original hanok bones on full display: exposed black wooden beams crossing overhead, white walls, and a long black wood bench running the length of the space. It’s narrower than the sofa room, and the uneven floor levels between buildings are part of why the cafe’s own signage asks guests to watch their step while moving around.

Old-style lattice windows separate the rooms from the courtyard outside, letting in soft daylight without a clear view through — you get shapes and light more than scenery, which suits the quieter, older side of the building. Near one of these side windows, someone had handwritten a short note directly onto the glass, promising the cafe’s beans are now self-roasted in-house, alongside a few doodled animals — a turtle, a cat, a small spotted pig. It’s not something you’d catch on a map listing or a menu photo, but it’s the kind of detail that tells you this place is still run by people who care about the small stuff, not just a chain following a hanok-cafe template.

The exterior banner across the main building spells out what the cafe has grown into since its early days: a roastery cafe with espresso, specialty coffee, bakery items, and Korean desserts all under one hanok roof, a wider identity than the simple drive-through drink stop it used to be for me.

7. Getting to Gomae Coffee and Planning Your Visit

The on-site parking lot is limited enough that weekend visitors sometimes have to wait for a spot to open up, so arriving early or choosing a weekday afternoon makes the whole visit noticeably smoother from the moment you pull in. There’s no subway station within walking distance, since this part of Giheung sits back from the main city center along quieter roads, so driving is really the only practical way to get here.

Gomae Coffee also isn’t far from Giheung’s IKEA and Lotte Outlet, so it pairs easily with a longer shopping trip in the area rather than needing to be its own separate outing. One more thing worth checking at the counter: the cafe currently offers a 10% discount across the menu for active military, police, firefighters, and registered national merit recipients, so it’s worth mentioning if it applies to you.

Two cups of coffee later, we were still talking about how different the place looks from when I first started coming here for that one drink. The orange cat had gone back to sleep by the time we left, the lanterns in the tree still glowing despite the afternoon sun overhead, and I’m already thinking about the next excuse to come back once the weather actually cools down for good.

Places like this tend to change a little every time you return, whether it’s a new roast, a redesigned dessert case, or a cat that’s moved to a different favorite napping spot. Gomae Coffee has clearly gone through more than one version of itself since it first opened, and I’d rather keep tracking those changes in person than assume the version I remember is still the one waiting there today.