Gevalia wants to teach Americans how to "fika"

Gevalia wants to teach Americans how to "fika"

I am highly amused by this, Gevalia, the Swedish coffee has entered the US market with success, and are now trying to teach Americans Swedish. The Banner campaign is asking people to "take a moment to enjoy your next fika". Fi-wha? Ah you see "fika" is both a Swedish verb and noun, it's pronounced "fee-ka", and it means to have a coffee-break usually eating a sweet bread or sandwich with the coffee. Simply suggesting "a fika?" can be an invitation to friends to join you at a café, while a "fikapaus" is a scheduled break in the work day where you drop everything to enjoy a cuppa and a bit of a chat.
Gevalia might already own "Swedish coffee" corner of the US market, and now they want to teach people to drink it as often as Swedes do (only Finland drinks more coffee per capita than Swedes). They're doing well grabbing this verb/noun - even the wikipedia article on fika shows a image of people queueing up for a fika outside of a heavily Gevalia branded pop-up café in Östersund. Any Swedish bakeries fancy importing the tradition of seven kinds of cookies to go with this coffee? A fika just isn't the same without cookies.

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