A cafe charged by the time. A cafe charged by the minute.

In Europe, a kind of coffee shop based on minutes is emerging, and London has recently opened a coffee shop that does not charge for drinks consumed by customers.

A cafe that charges by the time.

The cafe, called Ziferblat, is from Russia and has 10 chain stores in Russia. The new store, in London's trendy Shoreditch area, charges 3p (30 cents) a minute.

When customers come to the cafe, they first pick up an alarm clock, write down the current time, and return the alarm clock to the counter when checking out.

During their stay in the store, customers can enjoy free snacks, cookies and espresso from the coffee maker.

The relaxed atmosphere of the cafe is also reflected in decoration, such as deliberately mismatched furniture and a piano for customers (which may be a risky move).

"every Ziferblat customer is like a micro-tenant of the space in the store, responsible for it and can affect life here," according to the cafe's website.

Time-paid cafes seem to be on the rise in Europe. In addition to London's Ziferblat Cafe, Paris has an AntiCafe (Anti-Cafe), which charges 4 or 3 euros per hour (33 or 25 yuan), offers drinks, snacks and wireless Internet access, and customers can bring their own food.

In 2013, the German city of Wiesbaden opened a slow time Cafe (Slow Time Caf é), which operates in the same way.

It seems that coffee lovers around the world are beginning to like the new idea that they can sit freely in a cafe without having to have a headache, the high price of coffee or being abandoned by waiters for staying too long. The trend stems from Moscow, where the number of "anti-cafes" charged by time is growing steadily.