Drama Profile
Title: Shall We Have a Cup of Coffee (literal title) / Would You Like a Cup of Coffee? (English Title)
Main Cast: Ong Seong-wu, Park Ho-san
Writer: Noh Jung-wook
PD: Noh Jung-wook
Timeslot: Thursday and Sunday 17:00
OTT: KakaoTV, WeTV, Viki
Episodes: 12
Genre: Slice-of-Life
Plot Synopsis:
Based on the manhwa by Huh Young-man and Lee Ho-joon, the series follows rookie barista Kang Go-bi who is passionate about learning coffee and eventually becomes the student of Café 2Dae owner Park Seok. While spending time together at the café, the mentor and mentee will meet various people and hear their stories.
Maknae’s First Impression:
Like how coffee brings comfort and energizes us to our day, this KakaoTV Original has warmed up my worn-out soul with its pleasant pilot episode.
The first episode was clearly meant to introduce us to the characters and the setting. Everything about this series is simple yet one would be attracted to stay, spend time with it, and know its characters. It’s like a café with a minimal interior yet an interesting menu – interesting in a way that one would most probably find a character that would resonate with them. And of course, the first character to do that is our series’ main character Kang Go-bi (Ong Seong-wu).
In his first appearance, he deleted a text to his mom that said, “Mom, I thought I did my best but it wasn’t good enough.” It instantly made me want to cheer for him even though I don’t know his entire back story yet. That one line alone effectively showed the audience that he is a young adult trying his best to find his place in the real world but it seems like luck wasn’t on his side. Or it was probably because he was knocking at the wrong door. This is where Park Seok (Park Ho-san) comes in.
He owns a neighborhood café where Go-bi sat one afternoon after his failed job interview/exam. Park Seok gave tired Go-bi a warm cup of coffee. And it became his god shot. He had an epiphany right after his first sip. It changed Go-bi’s life plan entirely, something I’m curious to know more about. That coffee convinces Go-bi to become a barista. Hence, this story.
The entire first episode showed how Go-bi, with his diligence and patience, convinced the reluctant Park Seok to take him under his wing. In between, the audience was introduced to characters around Park Seok – music reviewer and mother Kim Joo-hee (Seo Young-hee), student Jung Ga-won (Chu Ye-jin), artist An Mi-na (Kim Yae-eun), and restaurant owner Miss Hwang (Lee Joo-sil). I doubt they were put there just for filler scenes. I’m quite excited to know more about these people and the other customers our two main characters would meet.
As far as the pilot episode goes, Would You Like a Cup of Coffee? will definitely fit the taste of slice-of-life drama fans. Watching its less than half-an-hour episode felt like a quick coffee break that enliven me to get through my day.
Afterthoughts
-We usually used the first two episodes for our First Impression but since this is not a regular mini-series with 16 or more 1-hour-long episodes, I decided to “judge” its pilot episode alone.
-I will probably add 2Dae Café to the list of my K-dramaplaces I would love to work at.
-So in one scene in the pilot, the cartoonist thought Kang Go-bi was named after the word which means “crisis.” Gobi in Korean means obstacles/hurdles in your path. It’s not a literal translation but it’s more like a metaphor.
-I love the meaning of god shot – something that inspires your creativity. I would most probably overused this term.
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