Osulloc 오설록: The Green Tea Fields of Jeju
Part of my Jeju series.
For Spring Break, I traveled to Jeju Island off the coast of Korea.
Short disclaimer: traveling around Korea right now is acceptable and safe, and I got complete permission from my school (in fact, they were confused why I even asked…).
So, double-masked up on a Thursday, we headed to the Osulloc 오설록 Green Tea fields and museum.
This museum was on the far left of Jeju, about an hour bus ride from our hotel. We headed out at 10am, only slightly hungover from a night of craft beers.
Side note: there’s also Osulloc stores in Seoul (like…seven of them), Busan, Daegu and Gwangju. It’s very popular in Korea—but the original is in Jeju.
For miles around, there were only green tea fields and the occasional building. Kind of reminded me of the corn fields you see in Kansas, except…y’know, green tea.
The museum was free and after quick temperature checks, we walked through the very short exhibit which led straight into a gift shop and café.
Yeah, there’s not much to see here. But there is much to try.
Osulloc was founded in the 70s, and its museum tells a narrative of reclamation and restoration. These lands used to be a wasteland, so it says. Now they’re a simple business of organic cultivation—and tourism.
The biggest draw of this museum is its green tea products. They sell green tea lotions, cleansers, ice cream, lattes, tea-making paraphernalia, you name it. And of course, plain green tea in all sorts of flavor profiles.
It was 11am and we hadn’t eaten yet, so we were keen to try their green tea ice cream and hallabong orange baumkuchen (a type of German cake, named after its tree-like rings). The cake was topped with milk ice cream. It was pretty good, but not mind-blowing.
After, we walked to the next building. I have to say, the estate is amazingly well-built. It’s clean and really pretty. Walking around all that green would be amazing on a sunny, warm day, but we still enjoyed it on a cool, cloudy one.
The next building over was an Innisfree pop-up store, with most of their normal selection of skincare products and a few extra green tea limited editions.
They were offering a soap-making experience for 15,000 won and we thought, why not? We chose their volcano soap option (green tea or hallabong orange were their other options; the only difference is the color).
The worker sat us down at a big table and gave us two bags of soap. She split each in half and showed us the instructions on a tablet. The bar of soap was already made; our job was to mold it, add color, and stamp it with whatever message we wanted.
It was actually way more therapeutic than I expected. We spent an hour lazily making our soaps. A lot of these sorts of experiences are for kids or couples, so for a while we were surrounded by preschoolers. But later a couple of halmonies (grandmas) popped in and asked us how they could do it, too.
After we finished and thoroughly rinsed our hands, we packed up our soaps and headed back out to take pictures in the green tea fields next to the café.
While it’s a bit out of the way, I think this was a unique experience. I had zero expectations walking in and left surprisingly entertained. I’d recommend it, especially if you’re super into green tea, whether putting it in your mouth or on your face.
Thanks for reading!
