We first read about MAA in a recipe book by the founder of Atelier September in Copenhagen, who claimed that the best ice cream he’d ever tasted was in Seoul. Naturally, on our next trip to Korea, we had to find out for ourselves. We made our way to MAA, where Sugyeong was behind the counter. We ordered their signature Geisha soft serve, a strawberry basil lemonade and a few pastries. Everything disappeared in minutes. Sugyeong smiled and asked, “Did you like it?”

We couldn’t stop thinking about that soft serve for months. And once we had our showroom in Amsterdam, the idea of bringing MAA over kept coming back. We decided to reach out, not really expecting an answer. To our surprise, they said yes straight away. This is how the soft serve pop-up started.

In June 2025, Sugyeong and Jiwon flew to Amsterdam to create something special together: soft serve inspired by the tasting notes of our coffees, with flavours of lavender and berries, and cardamom and vanilla. We wanted the ice cream and coffee to complement each other, without one overpowering the other. For a week, our showroom became a little meeting point between Seoul and Amsterdam, filled with soft serve, coffee and people coming back for another round.

A big thank you to Cafe Doan for the DAK x MAA coffee, a delicious cold processed natural Ethiopian made exclusively for them and they were super kind  in sharing some with us to celebrate this event.

Photos: Diniz Janssen