Switzerland sits at the nexus of three coffee-loving countries: Italy, France and Germany. Even eastern border Austria is known for its coffee houses.
But while all of these cultures are united by their love of coffee, the way in which they enjoy a cup can differ significantly.
As a result, Switzerland itself has a diverse number of ways of enjoying coffee, some of which are likely to make coffee snobs wince.
Here’s what you need to know.
The Swiss love coffee
Regardless of how they drink it, wherever they are from the Swiss love coffee.
The Swiss drink 1,110 cups of coffee per person per year, which works out to roughly three cups per day.
That’s tenth on the list globally, one ahead of Italy, according to figures from Statista.
Other estimates say that Switzerland is as high as number three on the list.
The Luzerner Zeitung reports that Switzerland bucked the global downtrend in coffee consumption during the pandemic, with the Swiss continuing to drink coffee like the pandemic wasn’t a thing at all.
In fact, the Swiss love coffee so much that the government keeps a secret stockpile of the stuff just in case.
READ: Understanding Switzerland’s strategic coffee reserves
While time out at a cafe is a Swiss institution, in the morning the Swiss are all business when it comes to coffee.
According to that great bastion of coffee knowledge that is Swiss tabloid Blick, 75 percent of people drink their first coffee at home in the morning, with only 25 percent drinking it on the way to the office or actually at work.
Coffee is the most important thing in the morning for the Swiss, Blick found, more important than sleeping in or breakfast.
The cost of coffee also varies depending on where you are in Switzerland, with the average price highest in Zurich (4.35CHF) and lowest in Ticino (2.70CHF).
READ: Where is the cheapest coffee in Switzerland?
And despite not having the climate to grow coffee, Switzerland’s role in the global coffee trade is so prominent that between 70 and 80 percent of green (i.e. unroasted) coffee comes through Swiss hands.
Why do the Swiss love coffee so much?
The answer to why a country which cannot grow coffee loves it so much is not incredibly clear, but experts say coffee is so culturally important because it has been considered a staple for such a long time.
“In other countries coffee is considered a luxury good, in Switzerland it is a staple food,” says Bruno Feer, from coffee roasters Delica.
The country’s wealth contributes to the popularity of coffee, as despite a cup costing a fair bit more over the Swiss border than in Germany, Italy or Switzerland, it is clearly affordable for the wealthy Swiss.
“The corona crisis therefore did not affect coffee consumption in the same way everywhere. The purchasing power of Swiss consumers is still very high and the product is still in high demand”.
The cold climate and the lack of a tea culture also contribute to the popularity of coffee.
They love it… but the Swiss did invent instant coffee
OK, so coffee snobs may thumb their nose at instant coffee, but it speaks to the country’s enduring love of coffee that they invented a way to drink it when there’s no coffee-making paraphernalia around - or that they found a way to drink it when it’s not even good.
While several countries including New Zealand and France had tried to patent a way to make water-soluble coffee, it took the Swiss to actually make it happen.
Image: Nestle/Wikicommons
Instant coffee was invented by Swiss chemist Max Morgenthaler during the great depression.
Morgenthaler had been taken on by a little known Swiss food company called Nestle and managed to crack the instant coffee code while at home after five years of research.
READ MORE: How Switzerland invented instant coffee
Instant coffee was popular during the Second World War and later became a global staple.
Now as proud coffee people, most Swiss wouldn’t admit to drinking instant coffee - although almost every Swiss pantry is likely to have a jar of the stuff, just in case.
Switzerland is also responsible for the 21st century version of instant coffee: the Nespresso pod, the plastic disposable coffee husk which simultaneously manages to annoy coffee snobs, the budget conscious and environmentalists at the same time.
OK, so how do the Swiss drink coffee?
The most popular coffee order in Switzerland is the ‘café creme’, or a Schümli in the German-speaking parts of the country.
We’d explain what that is to you, but the café creme is far more elegantly defined by Swiss travel guide Hotel Magazin:
“The coffee beans are freshly ground for each cup and the light-coulored coffee grounds are brewed under pressure, as with espresso. A uniform foam, the Schümli, is created on the surface.”
This is usually served with a small glass of water and perhaps a little aniseed-flavoured cookie, ginger biscuit or small square of cake.
https://twitter.com/kaffeezentrale/status/1316303092934160385
And while the Swiss love to visit a café - particularly in Ticino - one relatively unique aspect of Swiss coffee culture is how much they like to drink coffee at home.
Swiss are willing to spend more on coffee at home than their German and Austrian neighbours, with one in ten saying they’d pay up to 70 cents per cup for a coffee at home - compared to less than one percent of Germans or Austrians.
Julian Graf, managing director of Cafetier Suisse coffee association, says Swiss coffee drinkers have such high standards in home coffee that they are forcing restaurants to keep up.
"More and more Swiss people want to drink high-quality coffee and are finding ways (to improve) the product and the preparation of coffee," he told the Luzerner Zeitung.
“Customers will expect the same top quality in the restaurant that they know from home. This development has been going on for years and is now - like so many other things - being accelerated by the corona pandemic.”
More than a third - 36 percent - of Swiss have some type of sophisticated coffee machine at home like a capsule/pod system (26.1 percent) or an espresso machine.
The Swiss don't just stop with a morning coffee. They are also likely to keep their habit up during the day, with one in three Swiss drinking a coffee in the late afternoon, far more than in Germany (17 percent) or Austria (16 percent).
How do Switzerland’s different regions enjoy their coffee?
The German, French and Italian cultural differences play out in the way different Swiss language regions drink coffee.
While the Swiss on the whole average three cups per day, the French speakers have the highest consumption, with an average of 3.4 cups.
Across the whole country, just under two thirds (62 percent) drink their coffee with some form of milk, with the rest drinking it black. This is different in French-speaking Switzerland however, where less than half drink their coffee with milk.
Perhaps surprisingly, slightly more (63 percent) of Italian-speaking Switzerland drinks its coffee with milk.
The German speakers however love adding Milch to their Kaffee, with 66 percent doing so.
Ze Germans also prefer long coffee, i.e. filters or French press, whereas Latin Switzerland has a preference for espresso.
Lighter roasts - more common in filter coffee - are much more popular in the north of the country, while the south of Switzerland prefers a darker roast, reports Swiss coffee blog Kaffi Schopp.
Drink your coffee in a different way or haven’t tried a Schümli before? Let us know at news@thelocal.ch.
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