Who drinks the most coffee in the world?

The answers will surprise you!

According to the International Coffee Organisation, of the top ten countries where people consume the most cups per person, nine are in Europe.

They are:

1. Finland — 12 kg/26 lbs —Apparently the average Finn drinks nearly four cups a day and the right of Finnish workers to a coffee break, in fact to two 10-minute breaks per day, is enshrined in Finnish law..
2. Norway — 9.9 kg/22 lbs — that works out at more than three cups per day in a country where coffee houses are popular as places to socialize.
3. Iceland — 9 kg/20 lbs — Coffee the most essential social drink in the country because alcohol is expensive and offering coffee is an essential part of the social etiquette when receiving visitors.
4. Denmark — 8.7 kg/19 lbs —At weddings, people will often be explicitly invited for the bryllupskaffe or wedding coffee reception.
5. Netherlands — 8.4 kg/19 lbs — Dutch merchants were instrumental in spreading the popularity of coffee around Europe.
6. Sweden — 8.2 kg/18 lbs — In Sweden, the work Fika, describes an extended coffee break from work in order to socialize with friends.
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 —Wittamer’s is a chain of Belgian coffee houses with its own signature coffee drink: brûlot, an espresso drink of sugar, cinnamon, cloves, shredded lemon peel, and warm cognac set alight.
9. (tie) Luxembourg — 6.5 kg/14 lbs — the country 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 — finally, we leave Europe for Canada, where one of the world’s first coffee chains, Tim Horton’s, makes three out of every four cups of coffee sold in Canada.

Another way of calculating coffee consumption is by country and in this context the size of the population and the cups consumed per person play no part.  The international country measure is by the number of 60 kilogrammes (130 pounds) bags consumed and the results are very different:

1. United States of America — 27,310 bags
2. Germany — 8,670
3. Japan — 7,551
4. France — 6,192
5. Italy — 5,469
6. Russia — 4,820
7. United Kingdom — 3,770
8. Spain — 3,253
9. Poland — 2,501
10. Netherlands — 2,030

By either measure the UK has some way to go to catch up!