In both cases it looks like nobody is near you, so it should not be available in either of those screenshots 
I thought the icon always showed up based on the timer and whether you have used it or not, independent of whether anyone is near. I’ve never noticed it flashing on and off depending on if any riders are close by.
Have I misunderstood it?
Coffee icon only lights up if there’s a rider nearby to be your coffee magnet and you meet the criteria to activate coffee break eg. Within first 5mins of session.
Iirc coffee break is disabled if less than 5Km or 15mins of a group ride left.
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How close do the other riders need to be? In the first screencap the riders nearby list shows no one else, but in the second screencap there are plenty of other riders listed, but the closest is 3 seconds away.
I’m unsure how close you have to be, but much closer than that. You will need to see the other rider in your immediate vicinity like a few meters at most.
I tested this at the end of my ride today. Not very scientific, just riding along on a not very populated route. Looked like 1 second was definitely ok for coffee break. Looked like coffee break disappeared on the 2 or 3 seconds away mark but hard to tell which one.
Wow I really have misunderstood the way the coffee stop button works all this time. This explains a lot! On my rides today it worked just as you describe.
I have only ever used it once IIRC, but at least I understand it properly now.
Thanks to all who put me straight.
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Hi, did the Zwift Fondo yesterday for about 3h and checked the menu bar (on my PC) about 10 times but coffee break was always inactive although riding within groups. Frustrating if you really need a 60 sec pause and other riders are coffee breaking next to me…
Now I see something on my ride this morning that might explain why I was confused about how coffee breaks work.
No-one around but my coffee icon was blue. AppleTV and Android Companion. Surely the rider behind me was too far back? Or maybe I still don’t understand it properly.
Coffee break is definitely broken to a certain extent, on Apple TV at least.
This morning on a Tour De Zwift group ride I saw my coffee stop icon light up when there was no-one nearby. I pressed it to see what would happen and I got the dialog box asking if I wanted to start or cancel the coffee break. I pressed Start and stopped pedalling, but no coffee icon appeared above my head and I just slowed down. And then after that the icon was greyed out telling me it was just under 30 minutes till I could use it again.
I don’t often look at the icon so I have limited info, but I will try and keep a closer eye on it in the future. I’m wondering if it lit up in this instance when I was overtaken, and it didn’t go grey again once the rider was some way past?
Always get the coffee break after the first 30+ minutes but I do not get it after the 30+ minutes. I see other people using it multiple times in multi hour rides but I only ever see it once