Swedish Coffee Break Book

Sweden consistently ranks near the top in coffee consumption per capita and that’s largely thanks to (along with long hours of darkness in the winter) the fika: a once or twice-daily coffee break with a snack that’s something of a cultural institution. Originally a slang word devised from reordering the syllables of “kaffe” the fika is a daily ritual observed in all workplaces in some capacity. Some offices even have a dedicated room for fika time—sensibly named the “fikarum.” Operating as both a noun and a verb, the finer points of the fika are sometimes lost on outsiders—until now.