From gilkatho.com.au

By Oliver Hildebrand

Public servants in the former Soviet country are no longer allowed coffee breaks during office hours after PM Boyko Borissov banned the “vicious practice”.

"It’s a common practice for the clerks around the country to shut their desks and go for a coffee break. This is outrageous!” PM Borissov said.

Espresso is available on most street corners in the country, where small cafes and kiosks serve the brew, often in plastic cups.

For a country that experiences winter temperatures below -20 degrees Celsius, coffee has long been used as a vital pick me up on cold mornings.

In recent years the Bulgarian coffee market has moved away from this utilitarian trend, with the appearance of more and more boutique café chains serving a wider variety of styles in relatively lavish ceramic mugs.

American coffee giant Starbucks opened their flagship store in the capital, Sofia, in 2008.

Perhaps this shift in focus to a more sedentary coffee culture had something to do with the practice of the coffee break being seen as inefficient by PM Borissov, who this month introduced a number of changes to increase productivity, including appointing officials to monitor workers.

“The state servants must work more efficiently”, he said.

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