Korean Ring Making Experience – COBAN Cafe (커반 반지만들기 카페)

I did a poll on Instagram asking if you guys wanted me to do a Ring Making post because I went to one in Korea.

And you guys said YES! So here it is 🙂

Before I actually begin, here’s my previous Travel Tuesday post below.

If you ever come to Seoul, South Korea and wonder what you can do at night, why not visit this Night Market which is available in many other places too!

Check it out to know what I mean.

Related post: Seoul Bamdokkaebi Night Market (서울 밤도깨비 야시장) in Yeouido

Okay, let’s get started on the backstory…

Before going to Korea for my graduation trip, I told my boyfriend that we could maybe make our ring there since one of our friends made his in Korea too!

He agreed and we began searching for places in Korea with good reviews or rings that don’t look so shabby.

One main criteria was that we wanted it to be Rose Gold plated.

I know platings don’t last really long but I really wanted a rose gold one and my boyfriend was okay with it too!

The next criteria was to find a place that isn’t too crowded. If it was, we probably have to make a reservation.

Good thing was, the place that we went to, was pretty empty at about 11 in the morning to 12 in the noon.

And until we were done, at around 2.30pm, there was still no one haha.

But don’t worry, that doesn’t mean that they’re not popular or aren’t good at it.

We probably just came at a time and season (SUMMER) where no one was thinking about making rings on that day!

It wasn’t easy finding much about this particular cafe online because most reviews were from Koreans.

I basically searched 반지만들기 카페 (Banji Mandeulgi Cafe – meaning Ring Making Cafe) in Google and they gave me some reviews of Korean couples going there!

Since I could read Korean, I read the reviews and we decided on this place out of the many.

There are a lot of Ring Making places too. So if you don’t really like what you see here, you may try searching on Google for other alternatives!

Btw, COBAN is actually a short form from Coffee (커피) + Banji (반지 – Banji means Ring) = COBAN 커반.

You can sip a cup of coffee or anything really, while making your ring! Hence, a ring making cafe.

So, enough of these extra things. I’ll really get started.

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We arrived and the young lady, maybe in her mid-20s, was the only one in the cafe and greeted us when we stepped in.

She asked if we made a reservation in Korean. It goes something like this:

“예약하셨어요?” – Yeah-yak ha she-or saw-yo? HAHA I don’t like to follow romanisation/romaji because you can’t really imagine how it sounds like.

So I put it in pretty simple (I think) English that you can probably understand how to read it more accurately like how it sounds it Korean.

For, obviously better pronunciation, copy and paste that sentence into Google Translate 🙂

Keyword:

예약 – yeah-yak (reservation)

After telling her no, she guided us to one of the workshop (?) tables and gave us a navy blue apron.

On that day, she was the only there tending to the cafe and so were we the only ones there. Therefore, we had her full attention and her guiding us was no problem.

Her English was little limited though, so I communicated with Korean when needed.

Don’t need to worry if you can’t, because she will demonstrate to you on what to do, so simple English questions and response should suffice.

They should have an English menu on what to do too but the place I went to, didn’t have it.

Here’s 2 screenshots I saw from this Korean blogger: http://wanbong.tistory.com/680

It’s not an exactly clear image but it’s the English instructions just in case you can’t read Korean when you’re at this place!

In that blog post, there are more pictures to show you what you really do in the time that you’re there.

We spent two and a half hours doing everything that was mostly stated in the instructions above.

Took about 10 minutes to choose a design we wanted, a simple one for us.

Here is how the cafe looked like:

I’ll show you directions to the place at the end of the post 🙂

I didn’t take pictures during the whole process because I constantly had to do lots of stuff with the ring and my hands would be busy and dirty.

Btw, you do your partner’s ring if you are going to be doing a couple ring when you go there.

Seems a bit meaningful, doesn’t it?

Apart from couple rings, you can do friendship rings, bracelets, necklaces and many more. The prices for that are different.

We had to fill in a form before we officially started.

Putting our names, contact number, other options that we wanted such as:

Laser Carvings (on the outer or inner, your choice)

Font for the laser carvings (you’d be given a number of choices with examples of it in abc and 123.

Plating (Gold, Rose Gold/Pink)

Birthstones

Cubic (designs that cannot be handmade)

Diamonds (not too sure about this section of add on)

Then, getting our sizes. The lady mentioned that it shouldn’t be too easy to slip off.

Halfway through the process, we decided to get a drink each.

I got Iced Green Tea Latte (3,500 won) and my boyfriend got the Iced Chocolate (4,000 won). The menu is all in Korean lol but I’ll translate it for you below 🙂

The drinks we got were nice too. It was nicer than Starbucks lol.

After we were done with making it, she said that she could do the laser carvings today and if we wanted to see it, it’ll take only a short while.

So we waited and went over to see how the laser carvings looked on the inner side of the rings.

I got the thinner ring while my boyfriend got a slightly thicker one so the font size was different for each of our rings but still pretty.

Then, she said that she’ll call us to come over and get it.

A delivery option was also possible (the usual choice) but because we lived in an Airbnb and we would probably be travelling everyday, it’s hard to know when the delivery would come.

3 working days was expected for it to be finished. However, we met with a situation where the person doing the plating wouldn’t be coming in till Monday, 6th August and an older sounding lady called us and told me about it in Korean.

The plating was completed on 6th August, we received a text saying that it was done and we could collect it.

도금 (Do-geum) is plating, just in case you needed a keyword.

완성 (Wan-seong) is finished.

Basically, we did this on 31st July 2017 and eventually only collected it on 7 August 2018.

If you’re coming over to do any ring making in Korea, do it in advance just in case something like this crops up!

The day we collected the rings…

It came in a small pink ring box that fits both of our rings. 🙂

Here’s a close up of the actual ring on our hands!

Our design is a very simple single twist in the middle.

It definitely isn’t as smooth as a ring you buy outside but it also doesn’t look handmade.

I love it and the price we paid for 2 rings was super reasonable!

Price breakdown of our rings

Thickness

3.8mm (boyfriend) = 50,000 won

1.5mm (for me) = 30,000 won

Plating

Rose Gold (they call it pink over there lol) = 10,000 each (20,000 won for us)

Laser Carvings

10,000 won for each ring (20,000 won for us)

Total: 80,000 won (thickness) + 20,000 won (plating) + 20,000 won (laser)

= 120,000 won

On top of that, we had to pay 7,500 won for our drinks, of course.

If you don’t want plating and you’re fine with a silver ring, hey, you’d have saved 20,000 won!

All in all, I was really satisfied with this activity that we decided to do.

The lady said that it wouldn’t tarnish when you touch water too.

However, I find that no matter what, a plating would eventually wear off so be careful.

My boyfriend and I are using this as a promise ring to each other before we get married, and that’s the meaning in why we did this.

Small note:

The process for every ring is different, so if you chose a difficult design, you might take longer and it might be more tedious.

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COBAN Cafe (커반 반지만들기 카페) 대학로본점

서울특별시 종로구 대학로 14길 18-2 (혜화동, 2층)

Seoul Jongno-gu Daehakno 14-gil 18-2 (Hyehwa-dong, Level 2)

Exiting from Hyehwa Station Exit 1, look to your right and you should be able to follow the directions below.

Click for a bigger picture.

And that’s all from me today!

If you ever come to Korea, you could try this out with your loved ones.

It’ll definitely be a great memory 🙂

With ????,

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