Coffee culture in Italy and Sweden compared.
As an aspiring translator, I stumbled upon a very serious concept to translate: coffee. Coffee is something that helps everyone understand everyone’s lifestyle and it is strictly connected to culture. In this article, I hope to summarise the concept of coffee culture in two different countries: Italy and Sweden.
Where do we drink coffee?
Coffee culture is pretty strong in Italy, where we don’t have cafés but
Given this premise, Italians go to a bar, pay at till, order at counter, drink a small cup of coffee, sometimes they drink a cup of water before having coffee (this happens especially in the Central and Southern regions), drink standing up at the counter, then they’re back outside after 5 minutes. So if I ask someone “do you fancy a coffee?”, this is the situation in Italy.
But if I ask someone in Sweden “do you fancy a coffee?”, you schedule everything ahead of time, go to “Espresso House” (the Scandinavian equivalent of Starbucks, even though Starbucks is an independent chain there), order a coffee at counter, you get a large cup/mug of coffee (10 times the amount that you get by ordering a coffee in Italy), pay, sit down, chat half an hour or more.
Who said fika?
Unlike Italians, Swedes have something to eat along with coffee, usually a pastry (
The Swedish word

Is coffee something that makes us understand people’s lifestyle from all over the world?
What about coffee culture in your country? I’d love to understand what coffee means where you live.
(I found this interesting article about cafes in Stockholm, have a look!)
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