World Cup
by Thomas Golubic

(from Ground Control Issue #2)

It started simply enough. I was digging around, reading up on coffee, researching God knows what when I stumbled upon an interesting fact. When you look at coffee consumption worldwide, one region has an overwhelming lead on all the others. Scandinavia.

And I mean a BIG lead.

Although my first guess would have placed the US or Italy at the helm for coffee consumption, the truth is they come ranked at a measly #10 and #11. As it turns out, the country that has the highest per capita coffee consumption in the world is Finland. Finland! In fact, according to 1994 statistics, Scandinavian countries easily take the top four places of coffee guzzling nations.

The average Fin consumes 29 pounds of coffee every year, while the Swedes follow them (although they'd never admit it) with 27.5 lbs. per person, each year. Denmark comes in a respectable third with 26.2 lbs. and Norway ranks an impressive fourth with 25.6 lbs. According to my atlas, that pretty much covers Scandinavia. The average Americano sucks down less than 10 pounds of coffee a year and the average Italian closer to 9.2 lbs. Pretty lame in comparison.

I thought about it, but couldn't come up with a decent theory. As is usually the case with such mysteries, I turned to the wisdom of friends and colleagues. I first called my friend Viveca - born in Sweden and raised mostly in Denmark. We met for lunch in the San Fernando Valley at what turned out to be a tacky faux-German restaurant.

When confronted with the impressive coffee figures, Viveca paused for a moment and then confidently attributed the numbers to high quality coffee. "We Scandinavians, Germans, Northern Europeans, we drink damn good coffee." As she said this, I took a sip of the dreadful bilge that we had just been served. I asked her if she thought the Northern European predilection for lighter roasts had anything to do with the quality of the coffees. "Oh, most definitely. You Americans seem to want it burned into charcoal, you can get away with a lesser grade coffee. We like a lighter roast, but make it stronger".

It was, after all, in Germany - during the early '60s - that the flavor of coffee vastly improved with the invention of the Melitta filter and the drip coffee method. Perhaps having drip coffee in northern Europe contributed to its popularity. By the late '60s, the drip coffee method was available in most of the US, but it was not always used. As late as '76, at least 86% of Americans claimed to use a percolator for their home coffee. Even today, in the late '90s, many restaurants still use percolators or some equally horrific process to create an undrinkable $2.00 cup of coffee.

Later that week, another friend, Mati from Finland, called wanting a Nina Simone CD I had borrowed. I saw an opportunity. When he came to pick it up, before actually handing him the CD, I grilled him on the Finnish coffee-drinking phenomenon. "Depression!" was his answer. He believed it was depression that led the Fins to guzzling the glorious java. "You've never been to Finland, have you? It's a bloody depressing place. You have to continuously drink coffee just to get through the day." I looked at him skeptically. "It's true. Most of the year, there are like five hours of sunlight. If you stop drinking coffee, you lose hope, and you start drinking vodka. Coffee drinkers are just hopeful Fins. Take away the coffee and the suicide rate would go through the roof." I offered him a cup made from my own home roasted beans. "I don't touch the stuff," He told me, "I live in Los Angeles now."

Minus a great CD, I made an espresso and hit the internet. Mati may have been onto something. The winters in Scandinavian countries can be quite grim. In a desperate effort to fight off the winter blues, coffee houses in Stockholm and Helsinki are installing cumbersome light fixtures to simulate sunlight for sun-starved customers. They seem to have become quite popular. And though they don't offer individual tanning booths, people come for the positive stimulation that both the coffee and the halogens seem to provide.

Wondering if cultural preferences may have been given the short shrift in my story, I contacted Danish coffee expert Eduardo Celis for some input. "Coffee is still the dominate drink in Scandinavian homes." he told me. Cultural references regarding coffee abound. "'It would be nice to have you over for a cup of coffee," is the highest form of personal closeness that a Dane can offer a person outside of their family." Damn! Compare that to the frivolous kissing the French offer complete strangers in bus terminals. In LA, I suppose getting drive-through espresso would be like going steady.

Which brings me to Holland.

I had just met the very lovely Iva - raised just outside of Amsterdam - at a party in West Hollywood. Seizing another opportunity I asked her out for dinner, ostensibly to get some further information on the coffee consumption habits in the Netherlands. Holland (conveniently) ranks at #6 on the list. I came prepared with assembled facts.

Over an excellent Argentine dinner (Iva's choice), I mentioned that according to government statistics, 92% of Dutch citizens over 15 drink coffee. She confirmed this, telling me that she had been introduced to coffee while still a toddler and began drinking it regularly well before puberty. According to those same statistics, I continued, 82% of the Dutch report drinking coffee frequently. "Whats frequently?" I asked her. "Well," she paused, "everyone I know drinks at least four cups a day." I dutifully scribbled into my notebook.

To my relief, the splendid Argentine meal we shared was followed by a fair to marginal cup of coffee. I casually offered to make the both of us a lovely cappuccino on the Pavoni hand-pump machine I had at home. Iva accepted. In the end, I don't really know why Scandinavians and Dutch drink so much coffee. I'm just really glad they do.

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