Anthracite Coffee Roasters started in Hapjeong, in an old shoe factory next to the Dangin-ri power station that had long stopped making shoes. The company kept the building and rebuilt it as a coffee factory, and the name Anthracite came with that project of bringing a disused space back into use. The company is led by its CEO, Bang Hyun Joo.

Coffee is roasted every day. For each green coffee, Anthracite works out the temperature, roasting time and heat that bring out its character and builds a profile from them, and it puts much of its time into brew training and quality control. Its coffee is served in its own cafés and supplied to cafés, restaurants and other businesses through a wholesale arm.

Each café is in an older building with a character of its own. Hapjeong, the first, is kept dim inside to play on light and shade. Seogyo occupies what was an old house in Mangwon-dong, with long windows, a garden and the machine noise kept to a minimum. Hannam, Anthracite’s “most experimental space”, is in an old building whose large windows all open, so that the room becomes a passage onto the street. Yeonhui is finished in black: a dark corridor leads into a room lit by wide windows.

Coffee on the shelf

Photograph: Anthracite Coffee Roasters