Fika

What it is

The drink is usually filter coffee, strong and black or with milk, though tea and squash count too. With it comes fikabröd, something baked. The standard is a cinnamon or cardamom bun. There are also soft sponge cakes, chocolate balls rolled in coconut, sticky chocolate cake, small dry biscuits, and in winter and spring a cream-filled bun called a semla. An open sandwich is fine for a more filling fika. Sweden and Finland are among the heaviest coffee drinkers in the world.

Where it comes from

The word is commonly explained as back slang from kaffi, an old form of the word for coffee, with the syllables swapped. Coffee became a national habit in the nineteenth century, and the coffee party grew into a display of home baking. A famous cookery book, first published in the 1940s, takes its title from the idea that a proper hostess should offer seven kinds of biscuit. Workplace fika became standard in the twentieth century.

How it works

At work, people leave their desks at a set time, often ten and three, and sit together in the break room, managers included. Someone may have brought a cake, and many offices have a rota for it. Between friends, to fika means to meet at a café or at home for an hour. It is a low-pressure way to see someone and a common first date. Cafés called konditori display trays of buns and cakes at the counter.

How to do it

1. Say yes when someone asks ska vi fika. It means shall we have coffee.
2. Order at the counter: a coffee and one bun or cake.
3. Refills of filter coffee, called påtår, are often free or cheap.
4. Sit down. Fika is not taken on the move.
5. Put the phone away and talk.

Good manners

• At work, join the break. Staying at your desk can seem unfriendly.
• Do not take the last bun without asking the table.
• If colleagues take turns bringing cake, take your turn.

What is eaten

Cinnamon rollA sweet rolled bun with cinnamon and sugar, baked and often topped with icingPrincess cakeSwedish layer cake wrapped in green marzipan and topped with a marzipan roseKladdkakaSwedish chocolate cake with a crisp top and gooey centerChocolate ballSwedish and Danish no-bake sweet made from oats, cocoa, and butter, rolled in coconutCardamom breadEnriched Nordic sweet bread scented with cardamom, served with coffee or teaPunsch-rollGreen marzipan pastry with a chocolate-dipped, liqueur-flavoured cake filling

Also part of it, and being written: Semla.

Sources and further reading

• Coffee in Sweden on Wikipedia
• Sweden.se: Swedish food