Top 10 Countries that Drink the Most Coffee Per Person (kg/lbs per year) (International Coffee Organization 2016)
1. Finland —
12 kg/26 lbs — Finland is the world's biggest consumer of coffee on a per-person basis. The average Finn drinks nearly four cups a day. Coffee is so popular in Finland that two 10-minute coffee breaks are legally mandated for Finnish workers.
2. Norway —
9.9 kg/22 lbs — Norwegians drink more than three cups of coffee a day. Coffee houses are popular in Norway, and unlike in the United States, they are primarily places to socialize, not to work or to carry a drink out.
3. Iceland —
9 kg/20 lbs — Beer was illegal in Iceland until 1987, and wine is costly, so coffee has long been the most essential social drink in the country. It is customary in Iceland to offer any visitor a cup of coffee, and Icelanders have a stock reply, tíu dropar, or "ten drops," to indicate that they just want a small cup.
4. Denmark —
8.7 kg/19 lbs — In Denmark, the word
kaffeslabberas means an informal social gathering where coffee and cake is offered, often after dinner. At weddings, people will often be explicitly invited for the
bryllupskaffe or wedding coffee reception.
5. Netherlands —
8.4 kg/19 lbs — Dutch merchants first introduced coffee to the West, shipping entire coffee plants from the Yemeni port of Mocha to
India and
Indonesia, where they were grown on plantations to supply beans to Europe.
6. Sweden —
8.2 kg/18 lbs — Swedes have a word, Fika, to describe an extended coffee break from work where you socialize with friends. Swedes spend on average 9.5 days per year having a fikarast.
7. Switzerland —
7.9 kg/17 lbs — The Swiss combined coffee and wine to create a popular drink,
Luzerner Kafi, which is red wine added to thin coffee with sugar. The Swiss also created Nespresso, one of the most popular coffee brands in the world.
8. Belgium —
6.8 kg/15 lbs — The Belgian cities of
Brussels and
Antwerp have thousands of coffee houses, including Wittamer's, which serves
brûlot, an espresso drink of sugar, cinnamon, cloves, shredded lemon peel, and warm cognac set alight.
9. (tie) Luxembourg —
6.5 kg/14 lbs — Despite being one of the world's smallest countries, Luxembourg has thousands of coffee houses, from elegant houses with white linen table cloths to small, stand-up coffee bars.
10. (tie) Canada —
6.5 kg/14 lbs — The only top ten consumer not located in Europe, Canada spawned one of the world's first coffee chains, Tim Horton's, which makes three out of every four cups of coffee sold in Canada.