I have had a tumultuous and slowly evolving relationship with coffee throughout my life. As a child, you couldn't find anything I hated more (except maybe for coconut). I didn't drink coffee at all through college, with the rare exception of a peppermint mocha or two my senior year (and let's be honest, those don't count as coffee).
In fact, for most of my life I've been a proud tea drinker (and really, I doubt that will ever change. Tea is simply delicious!) I can drink mug upon mug of greens, blacks, and herbals as if they were water.
In graduate school, I became highly dependent on espresso drinks (lattes and cappuccinos), but always with tons of milk and some sugar. Now that I'm in Norway, I've observed that Norwegians are constantly drinking coffee. I mean constantly. There are multiple espresso machines and coffee makers at work, and every home I've been to so far has at least one fancy espresso machine.
According to this source, Norway is the second most caffeine dependent country in the world, following Sweden. In fact, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland are in the top five! By comparison, the US doesn't even make the top ten. In short, coffee is a pretty big deal here.
I've been teaching myself how to drink like the locals do: hot and black. There is nothing more quintessentially Norwegian that to come in from the cold weather (most likely after trekking through a fiord for 10 hours) and drink a nice hot cup of black coffee. It's taken a few months, but I've learned to leave out the milk (and cocoa powder!) and drink it straight up. I'm kind of excited to go back to California and show off my newfound bad-assness. Cream or sugar? Nei takk!
Images from With Grace & Guts
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