Peko

Daegu

Peko

Pekoe

A tea room and specialty shop for Japanese confectionery where you can enjoy homemade Japanese sweets with tea.

Edit Chaeeun Oh

Photograph Youngmin Bae

Pekoe refers to the white downy hairs found on the young leaves at the tips of tea tree stems. Located on Apsan Cafe Street, this establishment is a tearoom and specialty shop where you can enjoy handmade wagashi alongside tea. All menu items, including the charmingly simple wagashi, are made fresh in-house. The wagashi made with handmade bean paste is the most labor-intensive item, undergoing the following process: First, to make the paste, soybeans are soaked for six hours and then boiled for about an hour while changing the water. The boiled soybeans are then gently mashed through a sieve with water to create a fine bean paste, a process repeated two or three times. Finally, after draining the water, sugar is added and the mixture is roasted to evaporate the moisture. By adding seasonal fruits and other ingredients to this finished handmade bean paste to create colors and flavors, a picture-perfect wagashi is produced. Characterized by a soft texture that preserves the natural flavors of the ingredients, this wagashi is not overly sweet, ensuring a harmonious blend of taste and aroma that pairs perfectly with any tea. The tea lineup here consists of four types: green tea, white tea, black tea, and oolong tea, all of which are blended teas made by adding grains, flower petals, and other ingredients. While the blending ingredients change with the seasons, the principle is to appropriately combine them so that the auxiliary ingredients do not overpower the flavor of the base tea leaves, in order to preserve the tea's understated aroma and taste. Peko introduces new desserts made with seasonal ingredients every season. For the upcoming spring, they plan to showcase menus featuring fragrant mugwort and sweet and sour kumquats. With the fresh energy of greenery lingering these days, it would be wonderful to stop by to savor the aroma of tea and enjoy the changing seasons with both your eyes and your palate while tasting the wagashi.