▲ Coffee Will / CEO Kim Mi-hyang

It not surprising to hear that South Koreans seem to value coffee more than rice nowadays. And it is not much to say that you can find a row of coffee shops in a single street in cities by skipping about every three to five other shop. As the competition is getting hot, entrepreneurs big or small compete with the best or unique taste of coffee and the interior concepts.

It was the year 2011 that Kim Mi-hyang opened Coffee Will in Miryang City. Selling coffee goods at first, she started selling drip coffee online from 2015. In 2018, she turned the business as a provisional social enterprise and obtained a patent for her coffee brand Garden of Afternoon. 

Kim uses 100% Arabian coffee beans to make Garden of Afternoon with choice of coffee beans from Kenya, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Columbia and Brazil season by season. The packages are printed with the eight most beautiful sceneries of Miryang which are listed in the Gyeongnam Good Design. Garden of Afternoon earned the excellent product from the Women Entrepreneurs Association and attracted attention from overseas buyers at the 2019 Korea Food Show. 

Meanwhile, Miryang Coffee & Bakery Academy is running various courses for local residents in and around the city. The highly skilled instructors in the region foster 200 to 300 promising students every year and contributing to activating regional industry.