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Chapter 27 – Cold Brew
My prediction was correct.
‘I can’t believe you’re trying to ask for advice from a student.’
I was amazed at how open-minded he was.
Of course, I have no hesitation. Rather, I wish for the sea.
‘It would be great if I could form a connection with President Oh Kyung-Jin at this time.’
However, the timing was bad.
After thinking for a while, I answered, “It’s going to be a bit difficult.”
“I see.”
President Oh Kyung-jin sighed as if he knew it would happen. Then he attempted again, “My apologies. This is all know-how and trade secrets, but it’s my fault to ask so suddenly. Then, can I ask how much it will cost when you officially begin consulting requests?”
“What?”
The story seemed to have leaked to a strange place.
I shook my hands.
“No, it’s not like that….” I said with a puzzled look.
“It’s exam season these days.”
“….”
President Oh Kyung-jin looked at me with a look of disbelief.
But it wasn’t just a roundabout thing.
‘Students should focus on studying.’
It’s the final exam period for the first semester.
Han Yewon’s curriculum is usually exhausting already, but these days, it has become even more tiring. Even if I devote all my time when I wake up to study, a single day is still not enough.
“I’ll have a lot of free time after the semester ends, so after the exams it’ll be okay.”
“…I see,” President Oh Kyung-jin said as he finally relaxed his stiff body. “Okay. Then, please call the contact information on the business card…….no. Give me your contact information and I’ll get back to you soon.”
“Er—Of course.”
Just like that, I received an unexpected person’s contact information.
*
“Oh, I thought I was going to die.”
The last exam is over.
The tough finals are finally over.
The students gathered in twos and threes and chatted as they left the classroom.
“I should go home and faint.”
“Do you want some chicken and beer after you wake up?”
“That sounds great.”
“Let’s stay up all night at an internet cafe.”
Being excited about vacation didn’t seem much different between college students and high school students. Like them, I became free. However, I couldn’t just drop everything like it was the end of a game only because it was the end of the semester.
‘It’s time to start working.’
Throughout the semester, I eagerly waited for this moment to come.
If I have laid the foundation as college student Lee Jaeha, it’s time to work harder as designer Lee Jaeha from now on.
Originally, I was thinking of joining a design company as an intern.
‘I still have some business cards that I received before the exhibition….’
Based on the connections I accumulated there, I tried to lay the foundation for the design business.
However….
Somehow, the plan changed a little.
“Let’s hurry up and go. Sunbae must be waiting.”
As I was about to leave, Park Kyu-tae sagged like slime on the desk and muttered, “Can I take a break before going?”
“Okay. Get some rest.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Take a good rest.” I said, smiling.
“You can rest throughout the entire vacation if you want, so long as it’s during the vacation.”
“Great. The old saying is that you can sleep in a grave.” Kyu-tae jumped up as if he was tired.
It’s because I recently felt that if you follow me around, something will fall out of place.
The two of us headed to [Heaven’s Door], which had become a hideout.
“Jaeha is here.”
There, Hanseol and Ju Ji-hoon were waiting for me.
“Why did you come so late?”
“I just finished my exams.” Kyu-tae muttered as he sat down on the table as if he were collapsing.
“Ugh. Ji-Hoon hyung. Isn’t Han Yewon’s curriculum really weird?”
“What?”
“Why is it that freshmen have to roll around and suffer like this, but when they go up a grade, it’s so much easier?”
“Yeah….” Ju Ji-hoon said as if it were natural. “I usually don’t study hard from the 2nd year onwards.”
“What? Why?”
“You really don’t know anything. When they get to highschool, there are many people who forget about their entrance exams and only try to sell their work.”
“Then the freshmen struggle because they don’t know anything yet. That’s it?”
“That’s it. If you are someone who likes to roll around in the first place, why would you come to Han Yewon? You’re all here to study while doing something else.”
I smiled bitterly at the brazen explanation.
‘Ji-hoon, introduce yourself.’
After sitting down and chatting for a while, I soon got to the point.
“You know the person who came to the cafe last time, right?”
“Is he the president of the Coffee Association?”
“Yes, President Oh Kyung-jin.”
I smiled and said:
“I’m going to visit him from now on.”
*
“Wow….”
A cafe in Jongno.
Park Kyu-tae, who visited [Coffee Meister], muttered in a surprised voice.
“It’s a little different from [Heaven’s Door]. I’ve never seen such a luxurious cafe.”
Rather than a typical cafe, Hanseol seemed to look forward to it because the atmosphere was reminiscent of a luxury clothing store or musical instrument shop.
“Are you rich?”
I also admired it in a different sense.
‘I’m taking part in this.’
I had a good feeling.
As soon as we opened the store and entered, Chairman Oh Kyung-jin greeted us in a still and quiet room.
“It must’ve been a lot of work to arrive from so far away. Nice to meet you, I’m Oh Kyungjin.”
“Hello, I’m Lee Jaeha.”
“I’m Ju Ji-hoon.”
Chairman Oh Kyung-jin shook hands while bowing one by one without skipping a single one of us.
My thoughts have become more firm.
‘He’s a businessman.’
I could definitely feel that we were viewed as business partners, not just students.
He took us to a room inside the cafe and said. “I’ll bring you all something to drink.”
We waited for a while, and he soon returned to his seat with five cups of coffee.
“Please try it.”
“Thank you.”
Hanseol was the first to drink.
Soon her eyes widened.
“Brother, this tastes unique.”
“Oh, really? It kind of smells like cigarettes. It’s clearly not just coffee. It’s color is very dark,” Ji-hoon responded.
On the other hand, I wasn’t that surprised.
‘I didn’t know I would get to taste this here.’
Chairman Oh Kyung-jin looked at us happily, and asked if it tasted okay since I didn’t respond.
“Jaeha’s reaction is blunt.”
“I’ve tried this a few times,” I said, putting the cup on the table. “Isn’t this cold brew?”
Cold brew coffee with cold water. The taste was so unique that it was easy to distinguish, even in Korea.
“……Oh my. You already knew.”
President Oh Kyung-jin looked a little surprised.
I added an additional explanation.
“My mother’s acquaintance likes Cold Brew.”
My mother’s acquaintance here is me.
“You know coffee well.” Chairman Oh Kyung-jin smiled happily and continued to talk again.
“As Jaeha said, this coffee is called cold brew. Typical coffee is quickly brewed by pouring hot water into ground coffee beans, but cold brew is not easy to make because it’s slowly brewed drop by drop with cold water.”
“Wow. It’s a very precious drink,” Kyu-tae muttered in a surprised voice.
Ju Ji-hoon and Hanseol also seemed to be pleasantly surprised with Chairman Oh Kyung-jin’s explanation.
“It’s a good thing you all came here. Right?”
“I’ll have to brag about it to my friends later.”
As I saw them delighted with a cup of cold brew, I thought:
‘Well, even at this time, there were few stores that sold cold brews.’
In the future, it’ll be sold everywhere, but at this time, there were very few stores that sold it.
It is a state-of-the-art culture.
Returning to the past, I thought that I wouldn’t be able to taste it for a while, but it was very nice to drink after a long time.
‘I’ll have to talk to the boss later.’
It was the moment I was savoring the coffee and thinking.
Chairman Oh Kyung-jin asked me, “Jaeha, what do you think about the interior of this store?”
“Well….”
Okay.
It’s time for the main topic to come out.
I didn’t answer right away and thought for a while.
I couldn’t just say whatever came to mind carelessly. Chairman Oh Kyung-jin might smile as kindly as a grandfather who spoils his grandchildren now, but his true nature is a businessman.
‘Then I should answer as a business partner, not a student.’
I looked around for a moment and said, “Can I be honest with you?”
“Of course.”
I nodded and said, “It’s inefficient.”
“….”
Kyu-take hardened like a rock and looked at me. On the other hand, President Oh Kyung-jin blinked silently and asked again.
“Can I hear the reason?”
“Yes.”
I touched the chair with my hands and said, “The chairs are so soft and fluffy that you can sit on it comfortably for long periods of time. It’s nice because the seats are spacious too. Additionally, thanks to the soothing classical music, I feel at ease.”
Everything I listed so far was technically an advantage to the store. However, I was going to add a word to this.
“I don’t think the guests will get up from their seats often.”
Considering the characteristics of the commercial district, this was a disadvantage.
This is an office worker street. A different design was needed.
“You’re saying the turnover rate is going to drop.”
“Yes.”
Chairman Oh Kyung-jin smiled satisfactorily at my answer. Then, he spoke in a serious voice.
“To be honest, I’d like to open a store similar to Heaven’s Door.”
I nodded to the point where I couldn’t see.
‘As expected.’
I expected it. However, I didn’t know that he would bring it up so abruptly. Perhaps the questions that were laid out before were their tests of their own.
“Are you talking about a franchise?”
“Any way is fine, as long as I can invest in it. You can set up someone else as the owner if you wanted.”
This statement needed a little interpretation. When he mentioned [Heaven’s Door] here, it should be noted that he was talking to me, not the boss.
‘You’re probably thinking that I’m the core of [Heaven’s Door].’
It’s not wrong.
However, I can’t believe that you see me as a business partner even though I’m just a college freshman. As expected, this person is unique.
“I heard that the student supervised the design of the cafe. Is that correct?”
“It is true that I have planned overall. However….” I looked at Kyu-tae with my seniors who came with me and said, “I shared the roles with my friends here.”
“I see. Then I’ll think of you as a representative and ask you.”
He asked in a serious voice.
“Do you think interior design can boost sales?”
I answered without any hesitation.
“Yes.”
“Can I say it’s guaranteed that it boosts sales more?”
“Of course. If we can design things to meet the needs of our customers, I think there is an endless amount of room to increase sales.”
More than half of cafe sales are generated by interior design, and in my eyes, there were a lot of unnecessities, even in this store.
Chairman Oh Kyung-jin said, “Well, you just told me that this store is inefficient. I want to hear a specific explanation.”
“For example….”
I looked out the window and said, “This is Jongno, and most of the customers are probably office workers. Am I right?
“Yes. Most of them are office workers. I didn’t tell you this, but I guess it’s a feeling.”
It’s probably accurate.
I knew and asked.
“The fact that many office workers visit will also lead to a lot of customers visiting in the morning or lunch time.”
In a way, it’s natural enough for even a child to say it, so there’s no way that President Oh Kyung-jin doesn’t know.
If you recite these words among industry people, you will be ignored for saying what is natural.
‘However, I am a college student now.’
Even words from common sense become persuasive for no reason if they are said as if they were inferred on the spot. That’s why I continued to say these obvious things.
“On the contrary, I don’t think that there will be a lot of customers during rush hour or on weekends.”
“Exactly. Most of our usual sales come in weekday mornings and lunches.”
There was interest in his expression.
If he looked like that, then I was half successful.
From now on, I will only say the conclusions.
“I mentioned earlier that the downside is that the seats are too comfortable.”
“Right.”
“In my opinion, when office workers visit a cafe, they don’t come for the purpose of having a long conversation or taking a break.”
“….Hm. Do you mean to say that there’s another reason?”
I spoke in a voice full of confidence.
“If I were an office worker, I would probably stop by to buy a cup of coffee on my way to work in the morning, or to stay for a very short time before returning to work after lunch. Of course, I don’t have to be too comfortable with my seat because my stay is short.”
“Well, that’s pretty much right. However, this analysis alone means nothing.”
Chairman Oh Kyung-jin hit a blind spot. The blind spot that an analysis without an alternative is nothing more than a tabletop theory.
But it was a blind spot that had been prepared in advance.
“That’s right. I’ll tell you what I think from now on.”
I took my sketchbook out of my bag.
A thousand hearings are not worth one seeing. It was much better to show it in pictures than to explain it a hundred times in words.
“If I fix the design of this cafe through the above analysis, I would probably fix it like this.”
I started moving my arms.
Scribble.
There was a lot to draw.
From the moment I entered the store, I had been thinking about what to fix and how to fix it.
‘It’s hard to plan, but from now on, all you need to do is draw.’
I’ve already done this hundreds of times.
I just have to show it here again.
I completed the sketch in an instant and showed it to Chairman Oh Kyung-jin.
“This….”
He was surprised, and I opened my mouth.
“First of all, I’m going to split all the large tables.”
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