One of the most popular thing about Sweden is Fika. Fika is a social gathering like a coffee break. Every day, Swedish has a slot for Fika. Fika word comes from Kafi (Coffee). Unlike in Indonesia, we rarely have a special time in our working hour for fika, but here Fika is the thing that we always have.
Swedish, along with neighbour countries in this northern hemisphere are the highest consumer of coffee in the world. It’s about 8 kg per people per year. What a big amount! But, coffee is not growing here. We also can see a lot of Indonesian coffee here.
A long time ago, when the first time coffee reached northern Europe, coffee is a popular drink for rich, as alcohol tax higher and higher. Over consumption of coffee made it was banned by the King, claimed that it won’t be good for health. Also, King Gustav III decided to do the experiment with identical twins which one of them have to drink coffee every day and another to drink tea. This experiment was carried out to prove that coffee is unhealthy. In the end, the tea drinker was the first to die. But, until now, not sure whether the root cause of death was because coffee is better than tea? That’s why coffee is still popular here.
Unlike people here, I can’t drink coffee. Most of the time, when I attend fika, I only drink tea. Drinking coffee just makes the heartbeat fast, like when we eat spicy food. Drinking coffee usually stimulates the colon. As, I thought that the negative effect is higher, reducing or not drinking coffee at all is one of my good choices. If you feel sleepy, then just go to sleep. Nothing will work better than sleep, not even a one-shot of espresso. Someone has ever laughed at me saying that a programmer that can’t drink coffee is weak. Who cares?
By the way, unlike in many countries, Starbucks isn’t popular here. Swedish has its own coffee brand, Espresso House, which my friends agree that the taste is a way better.
Ria Ratna Sari 