Fika
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Fika is a Swedish verb that roughly means "to drink coffee", usually accompanied by something sweet on the side.
Fika is a social institution in Sweden, it means having a coffee with one's colleagues, friends, date, or family. The word has quite ambiguous connotations and can mean everything from taking a break from work or other activities to a date. This practice of taking a break for a coffee with some biscuits, cookies or similar (or even a small meal sometimes) is central to Swedish life. Swedes are actually among the heaviest consumers of coffee in the world.[1] Although the word may in itself imply "taking a break from work", this is often emphasied using the word fikapaus ("fika pause"). The shorter word fika may equally well mean having coffe with a friend at a café or konditori (a patisserie based coffeehouse).
Since the word, more or less, implies drinking coffee, just having a sandwich would not really be fika, although tea is also common, and young people may have lemonade, a soft drink, or milk, instead of coffee.
The word is also combined in words such as fikabröd ("fika bread") which is a collective name for all kinds of biscuits, cookies, buns, etc that are traditionally eaten with coffee. Non sweetened breads are normally not included in this term (even though these may sometimes be consumed with coffee). Fika is also used as a noun, referring to fikabröd and coffee combined. The word is an example of the backslang used in the 19th century, where the syllables of a word are reversed, deriving from kaffi, an earlier variant of the Swedish word kaffe ("coffee").[citation needed] From fika also comes the word fik (a colloquial term for "café") through a process of back-formation.
In northern Sweden and some of the more rural areas, fika may mean coffee without any treats: Ta en kopp fika ("Have a cup of coffee").
[edit] References
Martin, Jane Roland (2000). Coming of Age in the Academy: Rekindling Women's Hopes and Reforming the Academy. New York Routledge -Discusses the Swedish Fika on page 163
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