From a part-time worker to the owner.
From a single store to a thousand locations.
Until Coffee is JIN, the café bearing my name, Seong Woo-jin, became the most famous franchise café in Korea, I devoted my entire youth to a single goal: serving people good coffee at a more affordable price.
And then I started hearing things like this.
—Seong Woo-jin has been completely blinded by money.
—Can you even call what Coffee is JIN makes real coffee? It is just a drink made to seem convincing by mixing a burnt flavor with a moderate amount of acidity. Is that not right?
—Exactly. Good grief! They call that coffee? I suppose it cannot be helped when the CEO is a money-grubbing businessman who knows absolutely nothing about coffee.
To be frank, it made me angry. Who were they to disparage what I considered the proud accomplishment of bringing coffee with broad appeal to the masses? Besides, I had put so much sincerity into making that coffee....
It was easy to talk. Producing a decent flavor at a reasonable price was by no means simple. It was the sort of result that could only be achieved after countless rounds of research and countless clashes with suppliers.
A businessman? Of course. That much was true.
But saying I knew nothing about coffee? That was bullshit.
‘Fine. Whether I know anything about coffee or not, I will prove it to you myself.’
Coffee was my pride and my entire life.
So I gladly accepted the challenge, and I proved myself.
‘The World Barista Championship (WBC).’
The championship trophy I was holding in my arms right now was the proof. The days I had spent struggling just to earn the right to compete on the world stage flashed through my mind like a revolving lantern.
‘Now all that remains is to return to Korea. Let us see if you can still say the same things to me after looking at this trophy.’
On the flight back to Korea, I gazed contentedly at the trophy and indulged in pleasant fantasies. This was no ordinary trophy. A single trophy like this would carry considerable influence within the industry.
‘What should I do with coffee once I get back to Korea?’
I had always dreamed of making high-quality coffee something anyone could easily enjoy rather than an indulgence reserved for a select few. I had started my business with that single dream, and I had succeeded.
And now, I was the World Barista Champion.
It was a little embarrassing to say something that sounded so self-congratulatory, but it would not have been an exaggeration to say that I had achieved everything there was to achieve through coffee.
‘Now that I have a world championship trophy, should I put more effort into expanding overseas?’
Things might be different in Korea, but abroad, brands that had entered the international market before mine still held their positions firmly. But now that I had a championship title to my name, perhaps it was worth challenging them again.
‘Even the people from coffee-producing regions at the competition looked at me completely differently than before. If everyone else sees me differently too, my chances should certainly be better than they were.’
Representatives from Colombia and Ecuador had even separately requested media interviews with me in addition to the official interview at the awards ceremony. These were the same people who had doubted whether I could really become a world champion.
The first Korean champion, and the first Asian champion.
That title might allow business ventures that had previously faced limitations to proceed much more smoothly. I might even be able to overcome the inherent limitations of franchise cafés and present an entirely new paradigm.
‘If everything goes well, maybe I should even open a coffee museum in Korea. It might give the public a reason to take a greater interest in coffee....’
Perhaps it was because I had finally earned the championship title after so many years of hardship, but confidence surged through me, as though anything I set my mind to could now be accomplished.
‘Heh heh! Since I am in such a good mood, I should give the employees some generous bonuses when I get back!’
Apparently, the company employees had even prepared a celebration party.
On the happiest day of my life, sharing that joy with the employees who had struggled alongside me did not sound bad at all.
“Huh? What?”
It was while I was lost in those happy thoughts.
Why, of all things, did the cabin suddenly feel as though it were shaking?
As the passengers inside the plane began looking around in confusion, a terrible sense of unease brought the flight attendant’s preflight instructions on how to use a life vest back to mind.
Surely not....
What were the chances that I would ever actually need to put on an airplane life vest in my lifetime?
Fuck. And yet it really happened.
RUMBLE—
The plane shook violently as though it were convulsing. I could hear an announcement from the captain and the flight attendants shouting urgently, but perhaps because everything was happening so quickly, I could not make out a single word.
Amid the chaos, bags and other belongings inside the overhead compartments collided with one another and came crashing down, and I ended up losing my grip on the Barista Championship trophy I had been holding against my chest.
From what little I could make out of the announcement through the confusion, the plane was currently plummeting toward the sea. They said we could survive if we remained calm and followed the flight attendants’ instructions.
‘This is how I am going to die? Now, of all times, after I finally became champion?’
Perhaps it was because of the trophy rolling farther and farther away.
As the trophy receded from me, the tension grew so intense that I could barely breathe. The more the trophy that proved who I was disappeared from sight, the more it felt as though the thread connecting me to this world was fading with it.
‘No. I cannot die like this! The second act of my life with coffee has only just begun. I do not want it to end this meaninglessly!’
I desperately tried to keep myself calm.
But inside an airplane plummeting toward the sea, there was unfortunately little a mere human could do except cling to a vague hope. The hope that perhaps, just once, a ray of light might shine upon me.
THUD—
That was when something fell from the overhead compartment.
It was the portable game console that had always helped me endure the boredom of long flights whenever I attended events abroad like this one or visited coffee farms overseas.
FLASH—
A dazzling light spilled from the game console’s screen.
At the same moment, the plane crashed into the sea.