The rules of the championship gives each barista 15 minutes to set up their equipment, another 15 minutes to make the four espressos, four cappuccinos and four "signature" or special blend drinks. This is then followed by 15 minutes to clean up the equipment and space.

Barista's marketing head, Mr. Suriya Meter, who is based in Delhi says, "once the selection process from all the zones was done, our internal training was very strong" and a week before the events their contestants were trained with the different machines.

The machinery could be a variable in the fight for the title, Although the espresso machines could be different, from what the contestants are familiar with, as Mr. Sunil Pinto says, "almost any machine is the same". This year's coffee grinder used at the championship tad been brought by one of the co-sponsors, Mahikoenig, Germany's leading manufacturer of quality commercial coffee grinders.

Mr. Georg Lauridsen, manager Mahlkoenig, who has been a barista judge all over the world -Seattle, Norway and Finland says he can quite accurately judge the barista's performance, before tasting the coffee. And four out of six times his pre- taste evaluation is correct.

"India has really good coffee" according to Lauridsen, but the secret of making a good coffee is to "roast it, grind it and brew it" So the importance of the grinder can not be underestimated because a consistent grind pulls out most of the aroma and gets it into the cup.

The Matlkoenig grinder which has won the German Red Dot 2005 award which is the German design award was used in India for the first time at the competition. Matlkoenig's 12 kg grinder designed with flat steel grinding discs can grind 1/2 kg of coffee in 12 seconds.

Every new invention seems to be followed by another. For Matlkoenig has been credited with inventing a coffee grinder cleaner " which has been formed as coffee beans and takes the residue and oil from the grinder so that there is no smell, no taste in the grinder." The minimum 40 grams cleaning beans cost S 3 and takes 5 minutes to clean up the grinder, but took all of three years of experimenting in the laboratory.