You may not have heard of it before but get ready to be tempted to pack your bags and move to Sweden. The fika coffee break is the Swedish custom of stopping for one or two proper coffee breaks per day. It’s so much more than running to the kitchen to grab an instant coffee, it’s a chance to take time out from your daily activities and share a coffee with friends, family, and colleagues. It’s a non-negotiable, a social institution. Fika is sacred, and at many workplaces one or two 10-30 minute fika coffee breaks are part of the daily routine, mandatory in fact.
In other envy inducing news, fika most often includes a traditional Swedish pastry, or fikabrod, and usually includes those delicious, gooey cinnamon buns (kanelbulle).
The History of Fika
Over the years coffee was banned in Sweden a number of times, and so the not-so-law-abiding Swedes had to come up with an undercover word for it. The slang-word was kaffi, and from kaffi the word Fika was born, simply switch the positions of the two syllables and remove an f and there you have it. So efficient!
Why was it banned you ask? Apparently in 1746 the King imposed a huge tax on this new drink that was sweeping the nation, but the Swedes refused to pay. Fast forward ten years and coffee was banned, not that that stopped anyone from drinking it of course. Higher taxes were imposed which then led to some fairly shady back alley coffee drinking. King Gustav III was convinced that coffee was bad news health wise and also worried that these back alley coffee meet ups might inspire plans to overthrow the monarchy. So, in his paranoid state he attempted an experiment to prove his theory. He recruited a set of twins as test subjects and decreed that one would drink only tea for the rest of their lives, and the other coffee. Unfortunately for the King both subjects outlived him, the also outlived the doctors conducting the experiment. Ultimately, the failure of the experiment led to the ban being lifted in the 1820’s, much to the joy of the locals.
And Fika Lived on….
After the ban was lifted the tradition of a regular fika coffee break to catch up with friends, family, and coworkers continued. And today, Swedes continue to take their two fika breaks a day, one mid-morning, and another at that all important 3pm mark. It’s a tradition that’s taken very seriously by the Swedes, and as such it’s no surprise that Sweden ranks at #6 in the list of top coffee consuming countries in the world.
