Stop the Week has previously reported on one ’pay what you like’ bakery shop in the US, with all proceeds going to charity. The Japanese have gone one better, with a café that offers free freshly roasted and brewed coffee and snacks all day long, with one proviso that "people treat each other with courtesy and respect each other’s views".

Brainchild of rice snack producer, Harimaya Honten, it is located in a train station in Tokyo and is apparently a way of promoting environmental awareness as well as a nifty opportunity to make people aware of the brand and sample products. There are plans for two more free cafés in Paris and New York.

Just so we can get in there first and copyright the concept, the next development in this counter-intuitive will logically be cafés where you get paid to eat products. Don’t everybody sign up to copy the idea at once!