Ruth calls from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to share warm memories of her family’s 3 p.m. coffee breaks. Her Swedish grandparents referred to those breaks as kaffedags, literally “coffee time of day.” (Similarly, matdags in Swedish is “meal time.”) Swedes often refer to that cherished break for coffee, socializing, and baked goods as fika or fikadags. The word fika is a slang version of the Swedish term for “coffee,” kaffe (also rendered as kaffi). The syllables were switched to form the name for this beloved Swedish tradition. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Kaffedags, Swedish Coffee Time”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, my name is Ruth and I’m calling from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
When I grew up in South Carolina, I grew up close to my maternal grandparents. My maternal grandparents, they were first-generation Americans. They were children of Swedish immigrants. In fact, they had both grown up in Minnesota around other Swedish immigrants.
One of my favorite things about childhood with them was they had a faithful observance of a 3 p.m. coffee break. When they would gather at the kitchen table, they would drink a cup of coffee. They would have some fresh baked goods that my grandma made, usually just cookies. And they would just have this time every day.
They referred to this coffee break, at least as my American English childhood mind heard it, as coffee docs. And when I asked them what they were saying, they would just repeat themselves and be like, coffee docs. And then they’d, yeah, it’s Swedish. And then they’d move on. And so I never actually figured out what they were saying.
As I’ve Googled it and tried to research it, I see there is this 3 p.m. coffee break, potentially even 10 a.m., but in Sweden, but it’s called Fika. And as I’ve looked at it, I don’t know. It looks like the Fika came into being like in the 1800s, and that would have been the late 1800s would have been the time that my great-grandparents were immigrating over from Sweden. And I have wondered if there was another name for this coffee break before it was called Fika or what exactly my grandparents were saying to call this coffee break.
Well, Ruth, you said it’s coffee docks. Is that what how would you spell that? Coffee docks is how I always heard it. And as far as it goes, like coffee, like the brown liquid in a cup and then docks like wooden piers out in water, which makes no sense. But that’s how I always heard it.
Yeah, the word is actually kaffedags, which is K-A-F-F-E-D-A-G-S. And the kaffee part is, of course, coffee. The dags part is what’s tripping you up, right? Yes. Yeah. For sure.
Well, it makes a whole lot of sense if you know that the Swedish word dag, D-A-G, means day. And to make the genitive form of that, you just add an S to the end. So dox means of the day, and it’s sort of like o’clock, you know. Caffe dox is the time of the day when you have coffee.
Well, that makes a whole lot of sense. Did they actually use that as a term for the break before feca? Sure, they use it now as well. And you can add that dox of the day to mat, which means food. So mat dox is time for food. And you can also say feca docs, which is time for feca.
And I’m glad that you brought up feca because it’s a really fascinating social ritual that has a really interesting history. I mean, as you said, it’s a scheduled pause in your day. And you don’t just have it at your desk, right? My grandparents, they gathered at the kitchen. If my grandfather was feeling especially social, he would go down to the local diner, the local donut shop, sit at the counter with the other men and take his coffee there. But yeah, it was a very special time.
Yes, yes, exactly. Socializing is key to Fika. And Sweden has this really interesting relationship with coffee. It was introduced in that country in the 1670s. And then within a few years, there were a lot of worries about coffee’s effect on people’s minds and health. And the fact that coffee houses became these social centers where people just might organize to overthrow the monarchy. And so coffee was heavily taxed in that country, and people refused to pay it. And by the mid-1700s, the king actually banned it entirely. But people found ways to get around this, of course, because it’s coffee.
Early on, there was a slang version of the Swedish word for coffee that was spelled K-A-F-F-I, and that eventually became the fika that you were talking about, F-I-K-A, fika, which is just a reversal of those syllables. It’s a slang way of saying coffee, not coffee, but fika. And then later, fika underwent another transition. You can now just say fika. You might say, vi tar et fika. We’re having a coffee. So this word has traveled many roads.
Oh, Ruth, well, thank you so much for this memory. So the coffee docs is just coffee of the day, the time of day that you have the coffee. Well, thank you so much. I shed so much light onto what, you know, I was always mishearing. So thank you.
Well, thank you for your call. Really appreciate it. Bye-bye. I will certainly try. Thank you. Bye-bye.
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