Fika

Swedes are very serious about coffee. Scandinavians are number one in world coffee consumption per capita, averaging 4-6 cups per day. There’s even a Swedish word for having coffee and conversation with friends – fika.

Our group (4 spinal cord research labs) has fika twice a day, at 9:30 and 2:30. There’s a table on our floor that is in the corner of the corridor with floor to ceiling windows on two walls. The timing and location is perfect to see sun, even though it’s really close to sunrise and sunset this time of year.

Everyone in the group is assigned a week to make coffee. On Thursday mornings, the person responsible for coffee that week also has to bring in cake (usually 2 or 3 so there’s enough for everyone). Frequently, one of the cakes is a “princess cake”, which is white cake with cream and raspberry that is coated with a hard, light green, sugary icing. That’s it in the picture. (If you’re really curious, you can get it from the Ikea food section in the US.) Occasionally, the coffee person for the week forgets to bring the cake on Thursday morning (this happened today) and some people get really upset, even when cake is promised for the afternoon. (It’s actually pretty funny to watch the reactions when people find out that there’s no cake.) On your birthday, you have to bring in cake for the morning fika. With somewhere around 50-60 people in our group, there’s an average of about a birthday a week.

Tuesday afternoons our entire department has fika (coffee and cookies) in the lunchroom at 2pm and the chairman makes announcements, if there are any.

I’d say that at least 2/3 of our group (including the professors) attends most coffee breaks – and 99% of the group if there’s cake. They last anywhere from a grab and go (talking to people on line) to 30 minutes-ish.

I really like the concept. You get to take a break from what you’re doing to socialize with other people doing similar research on your floor – whether it be about science or current events or weekend plans or whatever. Additionally, I think it helps build a sense of community. Even though I’ve only been here 2 months, I know most (if not all) of the people in the group.