Now I consider myself a pretty patriotic Canadian. I like my milk in bags, my beer strong, and my winters cold. My list of homegrown celebrities doesn’t center around Jim Carrey, but Rick Mercer, George Stroumboulopoulos or the Keaners from Camp Caribou. In the family of ex-British colonies, we’re the little brother to the Captain of the foot ball team America. We’re the quiet kid, the art student who has the really cool room up in the attic. We’re not perfect, but we do our best.

But like any little brother, we’re proud of the things that set us apart, and whether you love it or not, Tim Horton’s is one of the national brands we all still identify with. Truthfully, the coffee is nothing special (Blasphemy I know!), but it’s cheap and plentiful; It’s fuel for a road trip, warmth in a hockey rink, or when you just need a pick me up but only have around a Toonie in change.

Aboot a month before I was to leave for Korea, a story came up in the Canadian news about a fake Tim Horton’s that had popped up in Seoul. They hadn’t opened yet, but it was causing a bit of a stir over in the great white north. Now, the market for a Tim Horton’s is saturated in Canada. They’re slowly making inroads into the US, and there’s even one in Dublin in Ireland and apparently some in the Middle East. But the one in Seoul is a knock off, and like many foreign knock off’s, I wanted to see what it got right, and what it missed; and maybe, just maybe I’d get a taste of home, Even if it was only a cheap knockoff.

So naturally, after handful of months in Korea, I was getting a craving for those two creams, two sugars. This was from the end of July, but I only got around to writing this now, so those cravings have only gotten worse. After getting some nudges from friends back home to see what it was about, I figured I should take a gander and see how much this Tim’s House Coffee resembled our homebrew.

Aside: For those of you who aren’t from the great white north or have never been to Buffalo, and are wondering what a Tim Horton’s is I’ll refer you over to here. Cole’s Notes Version: It’s a chain of coffee shops that brings about a certain level of Canadian Patriotism, up there with Hockey, building a Hockey rink in your backyard, or moving the Hockey net off the street and yelling “car”. In fact, It’s actually named after a Hockey player. Although I’ll recommend you don’t bring up the fact it recently merged with Burger King….

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Already being in Seoul for the weekend and with an afternoon to burn, I figured why not. The news reports said that it was around Daerim station, which narrowed it down to at least a section of town. After doing a quick check on google street view, it didn’t show the restaurant, but I could match the buildings next to it, and it seemed to be about 100 yards out of one of the exits of the station.

Daerim station is located in a Chinese populated region of Seoul which is not to far of a subway ride from anywhere around the center of town. Coming out of the station, I began walking through the crowds of street vendors and looking for the red Romanised lettering amongst the smattering of Korean and Chinese signs crowding every building side. A bit passed and I began to worry that maybe I’d passed it, or it’d already been shutdown by the corporate powers that be. But like looking for a buried car in a snow storm, it’d just take some time. Walking a little further the crowds began to clear and all the sign clutter began to diminish; Suddenly I noticed a red T in a font I’d seen pierce through the snow fall so many early mornings before….

Praise be to Don Cherry, there it was.

At first, the thought of “home” popped in my head, followed by the feeling of “someone is gonna get sued so hard” (Tim Horton’s did issue a statement saying they were going to “protect they’re IP” mentioned in the articles from last march). Now the articles had brought up that it wasn’t open yet, this being 4 months since the initial report, it was definitely open. I walked into the store and quickly realized, besides the font and name, that’s where the similarities stopped.

I figured I’d push my luck and asked for a “double double” which was returned only with confused looks. Guess I should assume a Honey Cruller is a no go too? Figured it was best to stick to the menu. The first thing on there was a “Tim House Coffee”, so I asked for one but was told no…apparently they were out of Tim House coffee…? So I asked for the Ice Cappuccino, and after getting another somewhat confusing response, I decided to just settle for the Cafe Latte. (Full Disclosure: Coffee in Korea is definitely not like coffee back home. I’ve tried harder than Sidney Crosby does to grow a playoff beard to find a coffee that’s comparable to back home. Cafe latte’s unfortunately are one of the few things that I found a taste for here. Those who’ve lived in Korea will know that for a country that has so many coffee shops everywhere, an actual really good coffee  by our standards is really hard to come by, and god help you if you ask for milk or cream…).

I sat down, enjoyed my cafe latte (not bad, I’ll admit) but decided I came all the way here, I might as well try something else. I was used to pounding back coffees one after another thanks to my years of working in office jobs.

They were selling small bags of “Tim House Coffee” in stands, but at a price of 20,000 Won each (about 22 Canadian), and with a trip to Japan coming up, I was on a budget, and that was a little too much for that small a bag. So I settled for an Americano. Sadly though it came off more bitter than a Maple Leafs fan in April, even for an Americano.

To be fair though, The feeling I’ve gotten is Koreans tend to enjoy their coffee more on the bitter side of things (which is noticeable since Seoul has more Starbucks than New York city).

Looking around, there wasn’t much else that was reminiscent of it’s obvious inspiration for it’s name. The inside wasn’t any more reminiscent of a Tim’s back home then any other coffee shop in Korea. There were no baskets of timbits, no untouched soups by the counter, no sandwich orders being mistakenly yet consistently switched. The only food was the general stuff you could get at any coffee shop here. Waffles, maybe a muffin, individually wrapped cookies on the counter. Although they did have a row of Corona at the front of the drinks.

All that to say, it didn’t do much at all to satisfy that longing taste for a medium double double and I left with that same look of ‘unimpressed yet not all that surprised’ Ron Maclean seems to have after each clip of Coaches Corner. So unfortunately until that care package arrives with that pack of fine grind, I guess it’s sticking to cafe lattes and Tim House beer.

Until next time.