First thing in the morning is an espresso, followed by a breakfast of Italian biscuits accompanied by a coffee latte. Then this is followed by a mid morning coffee either at work or a cappuccino while shopping. Then it is time for an "after lunch espresso" and a post dinner espresso again. So a typical Italian would drink five to six cups of coffee in a day.

This is a far cry from the average Indian per capita consumption,

In 1974, Erna Knutsen, coined the phrase "specialty coffee" in a trade journal. For lack of a better word to describe the outstanding flavour of the coffee bean, Knutsen who was a coffee buyer for B.C. Ireland in San Francisco at that time, came up with this original phrase, which entered the annals of coffee through the "Tea & Coffee Trade Journal".

Now of course, specialty coffee is history. A gourmet coffee or a premium coffee or specialty coffee can be the product of subtle climatic changes which tend to give the bean its own distinctive taste. This unique flavour which is indefinable could be the by- product of the right amount of rainfall, sunlight, certain soil nutrients or any other inimitable character.which is a lowly 60 grams. In Italy it is about eight kilograms per capita, which is merely half of the Scandinavian consumption of 15 kilograms per person.

Dr K Basavaraj, Deputy Director, Coffee Board and technical judge at the barista championship, has been an integral part of the Coffee Board's training program for many years. Eight of this year's participants are the former student trainees of Coffee Board besides six were judges on the team on the preliminary days.

"A good cup of coffee reflects the dedication and skill of a baristi. Everything matters, right from the seed to its roasting and brewing," explains Mr. K Kurian, Chairman of IBC 2006.

It was this skill which saw Mr. Felix Daniel of Cafe Coffee Day Bangalore walk away with the gold trophy and Roland Hilary of CafE Coffee Day, Nagpur get the silver trophy at the IBC, while Suresh K of Barista Bangalore bagged the bronze.

Mr. Sunil Pinto, executive, food and beverages, CafE Coffee Day, Bangalore is one of those, who helped train the cafe coffee day contestants. He explains how rigorous the internal training and elimination of the participants has been. Almost half the number of participants at IBC were represented by CafE Coffee Day. Their in - house recruitment from their Delhi, Bombay, Ahmedabad, Calcutta and Chandigarh cafes was followed by a two week long in-house training before the competition.

Says Pinto, "during their training, we push them to finish within 7 minutes, but under 8 minutes" because as the rules of the game go if you exceed more than 2 minutes then you get disqualified.