Someyeon's 행복한 찻집 (Happy Tea House)

 Yesterday my wife and I spent some time dropping by several teahouses in the Someyeon area. One of the more noteable spots was this Haengbokhan Cha-Chip. While it may be a little tricky to get there this teahouse sports an English menu with many of the teas served hot or cold and even has a small food menu.
Essentially there are three ways to get there.
1) Start at Lotte Deptartment store, go towards Coffee Bean and Leaf. Take the narrow street beside the Starbucks go straight to the next main street. On the other side you'll see what's pictured to your left here: the green sign for the teahouse at a farther three-way intersection.
Some of you may recognize the swim, fitness and dancing clothes shop on the right side of this picture.
Another way to get there, (and with less crossing of major streets) go to Someyeon's above ground McDonalds: the one near outback steakhouse and dunkin donuts. Go down the street to the BurgerKing. Pass by the Burger King, keep going straight till you reach the end, a Y intersection. You'll walk right beside it, coming from the right hand side of the picture here. Haenbokhan is on the 2F to your right.
Haengbokhan has a great menu with many of the standard Korean teas: Omejacha or 5 flavored tea, DaeChoo Cha or plum tea etc. Their menu is all in English so you don't have to worry. Their Daechoo cha was wonderful. Served in a medium sized cup it was well blended, not overly sweet as some tend to be but only slightly so. Craving something sour I decided to order their 다래차 (Dalaecha).  The dalae or in the Latin: actinidia arguta ( Wikipedia's Actinidia_arguta) which is known as either the hard kiwi or the hardy kiwi. The tea, served either hot or cold was wonderfully sour. Extremely so. More sour than the sourest of sour candies you can get in the store and kiwi flavor of course. Haengbokhan Chat-Jip also has a small food menu. Offering mandu steamed in a bamboo steamer, Red bean porridge (Patjook) Lotus seed porridge (YunJa Jook).                                                                  .

 They also offer small side dish snacks as well. My favorite 한과자 (Hankwaja) are pictured left and are listed on the menu as 잔통과 (JanTongGwa).
Haengbokhan Chat-Jip is open everyday from 11am to 11pm and is well worth the visit. I'm already looking forward to dropping by there again. Until then, keep it real and stay steeped. --M.T.

About the Author

Matthew William Thivierge has abandoned his PhD studies in Shakespeare and is now currently almost half-way through becoming a tea-master (Japanese,Korean & Chinese tea ceremony). He is a part time Ninjologist with some Jagaek studies (Korean 'ninja') and on occasion views the carrying on of pirates from his balcony mounted telescope.

Blogs
About Tea Busan  *   Mr.T's Chanoyu てさん 茶の湯   *  East Sea Scrolls  *  East Orient Steampunk Society