This is a public admission of guilt. 
Yes, I’m guilty. I’m hooked…on Coffee Prince, that is. 
It’s a funny K-drama starring Yoon Eun Hye as the cute and bubbly Go Eun Chan and Gong Yoo as the externally obnoxious but internally sweet Choi Han Kyul. (side note: in the local channel that airs this K-drama dubbed in the local language, Eun Chan’s name was changed to Andy Go while Han Kyul’s name was changed to Arthur Choi, most probably because these new names can be pronounced and remembered more easily)
One doesn’t have to be a shrink to know the cause of my addiction. Like a new dish that everyone wants to taste again and again, Coffee Prince gives the viewers a new kind of story that keeps them wanting to know what happens episode after episode. Its plot is not the usual girl-meets-boy-boy-meets-girl-romantic-comedy, where the girl is a “girly” girl and the boy is, well, a “boy-ly” boy. Neither is it one of those heavily dramatic Korean soaps with the usual elements of unrequited love, scheming antagonist/s trying to break apart the protagonists, revenge, dying lover, reincarnation, time warp, or a combination of any of those.
WARNING: The next paragraphs will mostly contain spoilers. Continue reading at your own risk. 
Coffee Prince is about how Eun Chan, a boyish girl who worked different odd jobs to help her family, was first mistaken by Han Kyul as a delivery-boy-slash-conman who was out to trick his lady love into giving her reward/favor for a good deed. Instead of having the girl of his dreams give Eun Chan her calling card, he gave his instead, adding that Eun Chan call him if she is ready to confess that she was indeed a conman. Since Eun Chan was desperate for money as her multiple jobs was not enough to help the family’s finances, she swallowed her pride and went to see Han Kyul, asking for a job. Han Kyul, still thinking that Eun Chan was a boy, gave her an unusual job: she was to act as his boyfriend so that the girls that his grandmother kept setting him up with would be turned off. Eun Chan agreed.
Eventually, the two became friends. When Han Kyul’s grandmother blackmailed Han Kyul to either run a coffee shop or be thrown out of his apartment, it was Eun Chan who convinced him that it was not such a bad idea. If Han Kyul would be successful in running a coffee shop, he would be able to have something to be proud of. Plus, if he would become the coffee shop manager, he can give Eun Chan a job which will enable her to save more to pay her family debts as well as her personal debts to Han Kyul. Han Kyul bought the idea, and it was then that the Coffee Prince cafe was born. The opening of Coffee Prince did not just mean the start of a new business. This was where the story really began. As Han Kyul got to know Eun Chan more because they worked in the cafe everyday, he began to doubt his sexuality as he was slowly feeling more than platonic affection for this childish 24-year-old “boy” whom he once mistook as a thief but was actually a hard-working breadwinner. How will he be able to live with himself if he *gasp* can’t help falling for someone of his own gender? How will he be able to work with Eun Chan and the rest of his crew without exposing his perceived homosexuality? 
Meanwhile, unknown to Han Kyul, Eun Chan was also falling for him. How will she admit this to him without revealing that she allowed him to think that she was a “boy” (note that my noun-pronoun agreement is going out of whack) so that she can get a job? How will Han Kyul react when he finally discovers the truth? 
Such interesting questions… whose equally interesting answers I will let you discover for yourself. 
If you’re dying to know the ending, try reading the excellent episode-by-episode summary/spoiler in the Dramabeans blog (I will add this blog to my blogroll later). 
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[1] Photo credits: The Coffee Prince photo above was taken from Dramabeans.
[2] While writing this entry, I tried to think of using the English equivalent of “makulit” (“makulit” in a good way) to describe Eun Chan. However, I couldn’t think of any. The five other people whom I consulted about this also couldn’t come up with an English word that can precisely capture the meaning of being “makulit” in a good way. Any more ideas, anyone? Feel free to drop me a note.
