Tea garden, Jingdezhen, China

In Sweden, trying to get anything done in July is like attempting to build a snowman in summer. The essential ingredients are simply not there.

This wonderful country’s generous paid holiday rules mean that from around the last week of June until at least the first week of August the country goes into ultra-holiday mode. Compared to this vacation, Christmas is a minor inconvenience, Easter a small bump in the road and mid-summer festival a mere blip. No, summer holidays in Sweden are the real deal. Businesses of all sizes either close for several weeks or go into a strange sort of warm weather hibernation. This means that, while they may continue to physically exist, they rarely respond to external stimuli. Likewise, government offices are generally open - but good luck trying to get hold of whoever is dealing with your case. Chances are they will either be at the country stuga (holiday cottage) communing with nature (and possibly antagonistic in-laws), soaking up the sun on a Mediterranean beach, or ‘somewhere in Thailand’.

Beige Temple, Thailand, photo by Suzukii Xingfu 

Of course, for the tourism or hospitality industry, the opposite is true. July and August are the busiest months of the year when temporary employees, many of them students, are taken on to cater for the seasonal influx of visitors from near and far. And those visitors will be especially welcome this year after the Covid induced drought of the last two years. For university towns like Uppsala (where Yocha Studio is based!) the change is even more marked. As students and educators depart for the long summer break, the character of the city changes completely. There is a brief lull at the end of June when the streets become eerily quiet for a week or so, then the scholars and teachers are replaced by visitors, both from Sweden and abroad, as the tourist season begins in earnest.

Sweden in the Summer

One of the advantages of life in a cold climate is that summer- when it eventually shows up - is appreciated all the more for the complete contrast tit brings. There is no happiness quite like that of a Swedish resident who wakes to the first real day of summer. It could be late May, it could be mid-June, it could even be early July. But when that unmistakable day finally dawns; when the bright blue skies and brilliant white clouds are no longer accompanied by the crisp, bracing air of spring but instead by a warm southerly breeze; when the summer swallows swoop and trill and the butterflies flutter in the still evening air, we know. Then we know that the Scandinavian summer is here! 

More mundane, human-linked signs of the season that’s in it are the aroma of roast meat and vegetables as barbecues across the country are scrubbed down and lit up for the first time in nine months. These are quickly followed by caravans of campervans that hit the road with a vengeance as their owners seek solitude in the vast areas of forests and lakes that make up mid and northern Sweden. Along with them come the large deep-throated motorcycles and vintage open sportscars, carefully stored over the winter and lovingly polished to within an inch of their automotive lives before that first summer outing. 

Photo by Kevin Bidwell

And, last but not least, the ‘Raggare’… 

“When the Raggare appear, summer is here.” 

OK, it may not be a traditional Swedish saying but it should be, and at least it rhymes. This sub-culture, almost uniquely Scandinavian, is as good an indicator of the arrival of summer as the rising mercury the sales of sunscreen. Beloved (at least by their mothers) and reviled (at least by ‘polite society’), Raggare are unrepentant middle-aged devotees of 1950s rockabilly music, unfeasibly large American cars of the same era (in varying states of disrepair) and beer - not necessarily in that order. Once summer arrives, they can be seen parading their ageing Detroit battleships around small - and some not so small towns (I’m looking at you Uppsala) - clad in blue jeans, tee shirts and leather jackets as the comforting sounds of Ricki Valens, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly blare from their equally unfeasibly loud sound systems.       

Photo from Pin

And that’s fine with us here at Yocha Studio. Whether you’re an American tourist visiting Europe for the first time; a pensioner hitting the road in that long saved up for camper van; a student working for the summer and dying for a break; or a raggare with a sudden urge for tea rather than beer – all are welcome to try our range of unique teas, cooling bubble tea, Asian snacks and other artisan summer drinks. So why not come and try something very different this Scandinavian summer at Yocha Studio?

You can drop by in person to our tea shop here on Kunsängsgatan in central Uppsala, or make a virtual visit to our online store at  www.yochastudio.com.

Till next month, take it easy - and enjoy those five weeks off!

The Yocha Team.