Momos Coffee Flagship Store

Momos began in 2007 as four friends -- Hyunki Lee, Jooyeon Jeon, Jungsoo Park and Jueun Jeong -- converting a roughly 140-square-foot restaurant storage room in Yeongdo, Busan, into a take-out coffee bar. Two years later they encountered specialty coffee and rebuilt the business around it, and since 2011 have practiced direct trade, traveling to origin to buy from producers rather than through importers; the company now works with more than 150 producers across 16 countries. The investment in sourcing has paid off in competition results rarely seen outside far larger operations: co-founder Jooyeon Jeon became the first Korean to win the World Barista Championship in 2019, and teammate Kyeongha Chu followed with the 2021 World Cup Tasters Championship. Sprudge has named Momos a World's Notable Roaster, and the company placed 22nd on the World's 100 Best Coffee Shops list. What started as a 140-square-foot storage room now runs four stores across Busan -- the flagship among them -- built entirely around beans the founders selected and priced themselves at farm level. For a city not usually associated with third-wave coffee, Momos has done as much as any single business to put Busan on the specialty map, competition medals included.