Visiting a Healthy Korean Traditional Teahouse Songdawon

Address: 6-10, Seongnae-ro 136beon-gil, Goseong-eup, Goseong-gun

Find out what you can get in a Korean traditional teahouse! There are usually various healthy concoctions, and the atmosphere is often meditative.

This is the entrance to the Songdawon teahouse in Goseong.

A wooden door at the entrance to a Korean traditional teahouse

Various pottery, utensils, and handmade items are inside.

A small, handmade furnace inside a Korean traditional teahouse Songdawon

Here is the menu. We can see that aside from special health mixes, there are also a few food items on the menu, such as noodles in a red bean sauce, as well as typical teas, juice, and coffee.

A blackboard with a handwritten summary of the teahouse menu

I tried a cup of ssanghwa-tang, a popular medical tea in Korea. According to Songdawon’s menu, which specifies in red letters what each tea’s health benefits are, ssanghwa-tang boosts the immune system and increases blood circulation.

I was warned that the taste might not be very pleasant. While the taste is unusual, I found it to be quite palatable. Floating in the tea are slices of jujube, pine nuts, and sesame seeds.

A cup of traditional healthy tea on a table with accompanying tableware

Here are a few other menu items and their listed health benefits:

Jujube Tea: Prevention of anemia and insomnia, anti-inflammatory
Ginger Tea: Prevention of colds, improves resistance against cold hands and feet
Ginger Extract Tea: Prevention of colds, cold hands and feet, stomach disease, improved blood circulation
Omija Tea: Improved liver and brain function, prevention of diabetes and cardiovascular disease
Beet Tea: Prevention of colds and anemia
Baeg Hyang Passion Fruit Tea: Boosted immune system, skin care, prevention of vascular disease

Traditional Tea:

Ujeon: a type of green tea
Sejak: another type of green tea
Yellow Tea: a lightly oxidized tea different than Chinese yellow tea

They had a combo deal of steamed buns with red bean sauce and an Americano for ₩7,000.

The inside of the Korean traditional teahouse Songdawon is made to be like a hanok, a traditional Korean house. I still come across old hanoks once in a while in villages in Goseong.