Tteok is chewy rice cake: the cylinders you slice for tteokbokki, the coins you drop in New Year's soup. Fresh, it's springy and faintly sweet; the shrink-wrapped supermarket kind is often stiff, cracked, and full of stabilizers to survive months on a shelf. These makers press theirs from single-origin Korean rice and ship it before the chew goes.
Published July 2026 · Updated 7 Jul 2026
Kim'C mills single-origin Korean rice in New York right before production, then makes garaetteok and tteokbokki tteok with a pinch of salt and nothing else, no preservatives. Their long garaetteok comes in five natural colors from ground mugwort, beet, pumpkin, and black rice, steamed and vacuum-sealed with a desiccant. Rice cake made close to the mill.
Why it isn't on AmazonRice cake is best when it's closest to the mill. A freshly-milled, preservative-free tteok has to ship cold and quick, the opposite of a stabilizer-loaded log built for a warm shelf.
See it at Kim'C Market →Wooltari imports garaetteok from Gyeonggi Tteokjip, a top Seoul rice-cake shop, produced daily in a HACCP-certified facility from Korean non-glutinous rice with no preservatives or stabilizers. There's a brown-rice version too. It arrives on their fast US delivery so the chew is intact.
Why it isn't on AmazonA daily-made rice cake from a named Seoul tteok shop is a fresh, perishable product. It moves by air-fast delivery, not by sitting in a grocery freezer for a season.
See it at Wooltari →This seat's open on purpose — we won't pad the list to hit a number. If you ship real tteok & rice cakes direct, it's earned, not sold.
Add your brand →They're the same rice dough in different shapes. Garaetteok is the long cylinder you slice on a bias into oval coins for tteokguk soup or stir-fries; tteokbokki tteok is cut short and thick for the spicy tteokbokki dish. Some makers sell both, and you can slice garaetteok down for either use.
Refrigerated or frozen tteok firms up; soak it in warm water for 10 to 30 minutes, until pliable, before cooking and it springs back. Frozen cakes can go straight into simmering soup or sauce. If they're truly rock-hard from the fridge, a short soak almost always revives them.
Use it within a day or two if it's fresh and unfrozen, or freeze it right away. Fresh rice cake with no preservatives dries and cracks fast at room temperature. Freeze in portions, and thaw or soak before cooking. Don't leave it on the counter.
Plain tteok made only from rice, water, and salt is gluten-free, and most garaetteok and tteokbokki tteok qualify. But check any seasoned or sauced product, since tteokbokki sauce often contains wheat via soy sauce or gochujang. The rice cake itself is usually fine; the sauce is where gluten sneaks in.
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