Coffee first arrived in Sweden around 1674,…

Coffee first arrived in Sweden around 1674, but was little used until the turn of the eighteenth century when it became fashionable among the wealthy.

In 1746, a royal edict was issued against coffee and tea due to "the misuse and excesses of tea and coffee drinking".

Heavy taxes were levied on consumption, and failure to pay the tax on the substance resulted in fines and confiscation of cups and dishes.

Later, coffee was banned completely; despite the ban, consumption continued.

Gustav III, who viewed coffee consumption as a threat to the public health and was determined to prove its negative health effects, is said to have ordered a scientific experiment to be carried out, although the authenticity of the event has been questioned.

The king ordered the experiment to be conducted using two identical twins. Both of the twins had been tried for the crimes they had committed and condemned to death.

Their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment on the condition that one of the twins drink three pots of coffee, and the other drink the same amount of tea, every day for the rest of their lives.

Two physicians were appointed to supervise the experiment and report its finding to the king.

Unfortunately, both doctors will die, presumably of natural causes, before the experiment is complete.

Gustav III, who was assassinated in 1792, also dies before seeing the final results.

Of the twins, the tea drinker will be the first to die, at age eighty-three; the date of death of the surviving coffee drinker is unknown.

Sweden's government in 1794 once again tries to impose a ban on coffee.

The ban, which will be renewed multiple times until the 1820s, will never be successful in stamping out coffee-drinking.