If you swear by coffee, mug this one up

BANGALORE: Pick up a guitar and strum your favourite tune. Pore over a game of chess with a partner or duel with words across a scrabble board. For additional steam, sip coffee. That taste will get you going now when Barista opens its first cafe on Commercial Street on Tuesday. Spread over 2000 sqft, with bright orange hues, it will be like sunshine all around.If you were in Italy, the Barista would be the one to run your neighbourhood cafe. A country which produces no coffee and yet has become synonymous with the world''s best-tasting flavours, has over 20,000 such cafes. And the Barista? Well, it knows everything. Or just about. Whether it''s more milk that you want or coffee. Whether you like it loaded with sugar or bitter as hell. Your place of work. Your salary. Your friends. Your wife''s friends.... ``It''s the neighbourhood experience which we are trying to bring in through our cafes. No, not the Nosy Parker types, but staff who will be warm, helpful and yet keep away when you don''t want them around. Moreover, we are not creating loud coffee bars. Ours have soft blues and jazz playing. It''s all got to be subtle and languid,'''' says Ravi S. Deol, President and CEO of Java Coffee Company which runs the Barista chain __ eleven outlets in Delhi, four in Mumbai and one each in Chandigarh and Hyderabad. Coffee drinking is big time the world over. Americans have it throughout their waking hours. Even the Japanese who were born tea-drinkers have switched to coffee. Says Deol: ``We are trying to sell the coffee-drinking experience, not just a product. In all the Baristas, we are trying to bridge the experimental gap that exists for those who are looking for something away from the filter coffee fixation and five-star formality.'''' So, the effort is to turn these into cafi-experience stores. ``Coffee is invariably associated with books, music and art. We are trying to bring in that element into our cafes. We have a tie-up with Crossword by which every Crossword bookstore will have a Barista. All Planet M stores will have an espresso bar. We have also tied up with shopping malls and major business centres,'''' explains Deol. Barista coffees will have an espresso base. ``You cannot make expresso at home, you need special equipment for that. Once that is provided you can improvise,'''' says Deol. So, all ye who swear by coffee, mug this one up. It is Barista cafi.