FOOD & DRINKS
42 Restaurant Review
Hawonjae Tearoom
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
August 2020
A Taste of Home in a Cup of Tea Written and photographed by Fatemeh Khalili
A
s I was missing home and the true taste of Persian black tea, my friend looked for a tea house to soothe my homesickness. As I live in a dorm in Korea, not being able to make hot tea in a teapot over the stove makes me deeply homesick, even more so since I brought some black tea leaves with me from Iran on my last visit. Iranians are super-obsessed with tea and drink it in the morning, after each meal, and throughout the rest of the day. Additionally, the first drink that one is offered when visiting someone home is usually a cup of tea. So, you may now understand how difficult it is for me to live without drinking tea from morning till night!
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I am so thankful to my friend who introduced me to Hawonjae Tearoom (티룸하원재) in the heart of Gwangju’s Culture Street (문화의 거리) in Yangnim-dong (양림동). There you can discover the beauty of Gwangju’s history and enjoy seeing many different traditional houses and art galleries. We were supposed to visit Choi Seung Hyo’s house (최승효 가옥), which was built in 1920 and is one of Gwangju’s important cultural assets. It holds deep meaning for the people of Gwangju, as independence activists used to flee there during the Japanese colonial period in Korea. Unfortunately, because of the current situation caused by COVID-19, it was closed when
7/27/2020 12:28:27 PM
