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Chain calls time on five-a-day coffee subscription it launched in UK after Covid pandemic

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Pret a Manger is axing its subscription offering members “free drinks”, almost four years after the deal launched in the UK to attract customers back after the Covid pandemic.

In a move that has upset some customers, the coffee chain said it was “time to rethink” the Club Pret offer, and that instead of providing five drinks a day and a 20% discount on food for a cost of £30 a month, it would charge £10 for a subscription for half-price drinks.

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For UK consumers the cost of beans could increase by up to 25% over the coming year

The price of coffee is set to remain “very high” and is unlikely to drop until the middle of next year amid intense pressure on supply chains, the Italian coffee company Lavazza has said.

“We have never seen such a spike in price as the trend right now,” said Giuseppe Lavazza, who chairs the company. He admitted that he had been wrong to predict last year that prices would begin to fall this year. On Monday, prices reached $4,300 (£3,356) a tonne.

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Vickie Hunt gave up caffeine 11 months ago and is feeling and seeing the benefits, while Lynne Edwards says mind out for matcha

I loved Nell Frizzell’s inspirational article on being caffeine-free ( For seven years, I have been caffeine-free. Here’s how it has changed me, 26 May ). I’m in month 11 of no caffeine and I’m enjoying a bit more sleep and much less agitation and rage all round.

My caffeine-fuelled prickly sweats are noticeably gone. My fortnightly chats with a friend are now redesigned as the last time she insisted buying our drinks (“yes, of course I’ve ordered you a caffeine-free cappuccino”) mine fired me up into a trembling, jibber-jabbering mess, feverishly scribbling down to-do lists on a napkin. I now sip cool, clear, bottled water instead. The chats are less animated and excitable, but I feel pleasantly less exhausted afterwards.

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A team of scientists in Australia say that they have found a way to make cold brew coffee in less than three minutes using an ultrasonic reactor. This is a potentially massive deal because cold brew normally takes between 12 and 24 hours to brew, a problem for me, personally, when I do not carefully manage my cold brew stock. The lead scientist on the research team tells me he has also created a “cold espresso,” which is his personal favorite and sounds very intriguing.

The researchers at the University of New South Wales Sydney claim that their ultrasonic extraction held up to a “sensory analysis” and blind taste tests by trained experts: “A sensory analysis was conducted to evaluate appearance, aroma, texture, flavor, and aftertaste, which demonstrated that coffee brewed for 1 and 3 min in the sonoreactor exhibited almost undistinguishable properties compared to a standard 24 hour [cold] brewing without ultrasound,” they write in a paper about the method in the journal Ultrasonics Sonochemistry. 

For the uninitiated, cold brewed coffee is made by soaking coffee grounds in cold or room temperature water in large batches to create a concentrate that you can keep in the fridge for a week or two. Because the water is not hot, the extraction from ground coffee beans takes much longer than it does with traditional hot brewing. The resulting cold brew is less acidic, less bitter, and sweeter. This long brew time isn’t a problem if you plan ahead, but, as mentioned, if you do not plan ahead, you cannot really speed up the cold brew time while continuing to have cold brew. As lead author Francisco Trujillo notes in the paper, the resulting large batches of cold brew concentrate also take up a lot of counter and fridge space, meaning that not every coffee shop or restaurant has it on hand. This is a phenomenon I am very familiar with, as many establishments currently on my shitlist claim that they have “cold brew” that is actually hot coffee poured over ice. 

Your daily caffeine habit is not good for the planet. Thankfully, researchers are finding alternatives to ground coffee beans

Name: Synthetic coffee.

Age: Three.

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A large takeaway flat white will already set you back £5.19 in London and other cities aren’t far behind. If cafe owners aren’t getting rich off our caffeine habit, who is?

It was one of those London museum cafes where buggies block the entrance and children trail veggie straws across the floor. The queue of parents stretched to the door and the staff appeared frazzled. I ordered an iced oat milk latte. “That will be £4.50,” said the server. I remember the sensations that follow acutely.

Shock. How much? Regret. I don’t want it . Self-recrimination. Why didn’t I check the price ? Embarrassment. If I say I don’t want it, everyone will hear. Acceptance. I’ll pay for it, but I’m never ordering here again. I drank every sip of the coffee, waited for the ice to melt, and drank that, too. I was out of sorts for the rest of the day.

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Exclusive: Scientists say people with disease who drink two to four cups a day are less likely to see it return

People with bowel cancer who drink two to four cups of coffee a day are much less likely to see their disease come back, research has found.

People with the illness who consume that amount are also much less likely to die from any cause, the study shows, which suggests coffee helps those diagnosed with the UK’s second biggest cancer killer.

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Devour these caffeine-laced morsels warm, especially if they’re dipped in chocolate spread or jersey cream

Freshly baked madeleines are magic. Always a crowdpleaser, they take minutes to bake once the batter is made. I used to think that the only way to enjoy a madeleine was warm, but have since grown to appreciate how soft and buttery they remain once cool. They can easily be embellished, too. I’ve had citrussy madeleines served with lemon icing for dipping, while at Maison François in London they feature on the dessert trolley, piped with a pistachio ganache centre and dipped in a delicate white-chocolate shell. Here, I’ve put coffee grounds in the batter and recommend serving them with bowls of chocolate spread and jersey cream.

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