Why do we drink so much coffee?

According to Wikipedia, citing the World Resource Institute, the five Nordic countries top the list of coffee consumption per capita.
(That Aruba figure so high in that list is a total fluke, it seems that it is a trans-shipping point and looking at the figures over a 30 year span Aruba's yearly "consumption" varies from 0 to 121 kg/capita. Bermuda's historical figures OTOH are more consistent.)

But why? Why do the Nordic countries drink so much coffee? And why does the trend even seem to hold for the Baltic states? The further north, the more coffee consumed. Perhaps because geographical "northern-ness" happens to be inversely proportional to "russian-ness"?

Perhaps the Nordic love of coffee is related to it being so dark half the year, and so light a quarter of the year? Perhaps we need to use lots caffeine to keep our diurnal rhytms from too closely mimicing the seasons? And perhaps the statistics also partly reflect the fact that we generally like our coffee strong?

Or perhaps it is somehow related to the generally "dry" official attitude of our countries? Seeing that the order is Finland, Iceland, Norway and then Denmark and Sweden (it is only since 1995 that the Danes have consistently consumed more than the Swedes) makes this a pretty tempting explanation.

Isn't the stereotypical picture of Finns, Icelanders and Norwegians one of guys that like to do things to extremes? A high use of stimulants would tend to fit nicely into that. Especially in conditions that make the availability of alcohol restricted and the booze quite expensive when you get it.

In this scenario the odd man out is Sweden. According to this theory (not to mention the geographical one above) Sweden should trounce Denmark thoroughly in the coffee-drinking championships. It might be that the statistics lie, and the fact that the switch in positions happened in 1995, the year both countries became EU members could point in that direction. But without knowing the price-levels of coffee in Sweden resp. Denmark it is very hard to say for sure if the increase in shopping trips over the border is responsible.

Or it could be that the stereo-typical view of Swedes as unusually susceptible to official health campaigns is an explanations. (Finnish media absolutely loooves to tout any and all scientific pro-coffee findings, Swedish media - not so much.)

And then we have the fact that Finland usually is a whole kg-per-person ahead of the rest (the slump in coffee prices in the early 90ies makes the statistics a bit unreliable - the world market price of coffee more than doubled between January 1994 and January 1995, and the dip that can be seen around 1995-1996 seems to be attributable to diminished imports because of stockpiling in early-mid 1994. The International Coffee Organisation, ICO, has some nice statistics.) - what are the explanations for that?

Most foreigners do note that Finns drink a lot of coffee, and that coffee is available at nearly every imaginable gathering. It is considered quite daring to omit coffee, or substitute some other drink, at any gathering, from funerals and weddings to quick work meetings.

But why? I have no idea. It might be that coffee somehow gained an exalted status as a luxury item early on, and gained almost mythical properties during the scarcity of the war years. And during better times the quality of coffee consumed in Finland has been evaluated as quite high - pre-roasted coffee probably came much later to the average Finnish coffee consumer than in most of Europe. Every small folkloristic museum has one or more "coffee-burners" (ranging in age from late 18th to early 20th century) for stovetop use on display.

But still, why Finland? In comparison to our Nordic neighbours our rise to prosperity (and our urbanisation) has been much more abrupt and quick, really only beginning after the war. Is perhaps the excessive coffee-drinking a rural hold-over? (Sweden again makes for an interesting comparison, I can't seem to find statistics older than 30 years, but Finland only passed Sweden in coffee consumption at the end of the 1970-ies.)