London Café Invites Customers to Pair E-Cigarettes with Coffee
London’s Shoreditch, home to the hipster, the pinstriped nicotine cravers and the too-cool-for-school East London dwellers, is the new site for London’s first e-cigarette coffee shop.
Vape Lab, launched by French expats Pierre Durand and Jonathan Cadeilhan, opened its doors last month to sell not only e-cigarettes, but also to rent them out by the hour to caffeine fans while they enjoy their coffee.
The shop offers an extensive range of flavored ‘e-liquids’: from custard to Cuban tobacco, absinthe to bubblegum. While its products do not come cheap – reusable base units start at £ 45; 10 ml bottles of flavored solutions at £ 7 – Durand and Cadeilhan argue that a 10 ml bottle is equivalent to seven packets of normal cigarettes, making it value for money.
The founders predict this is the start of what will become a widespread trend. “Here in London, it’s a young market: you see people here with disposable cigarettes and they will switch to electronic cigarettes. In five years’ time, there will be no more tobacco,” told the Guardian. Noted.