South Korea's imports of coffee surpassed one trillion won for the first time last year.

According to the Korea Customs Service and the food industry on Monday, the nation's coffee imports came to a record high of 916-point-five million U.S. dollars in 2021, up 24-point-two percent from a year earlier.

The value of the imports marks one trillion won in terms of the Korean currency given the average won-dollar exchange rate was one-thousand-144-point-42 won per dollar last year.

The comparable figure for 2020 was 737-point-eight million dollars, or 870 billion won.

By volume, the nation’s coffee imports also reached a new high of 189-thousand-502 tons last year, a seven-point-three percent increase from the previous year.

The number of coffee shops nearly doubled over the past four years to over 83-thousand at the end of last year, a figure that stands 70 percent higher than the number of convenience stores in the nation.