Barista

A barista (Italian [baˈrista]; English /bəˈriːstə/ bə-REE-stuh or /bəˈrɪstə/ bə-RI-stuh; from the Italian for "bartender") is a person, usually a coffeehouse employee, who prepares and serves espresso-based coffee drinks.

Etymology and inflection

The word barista is an Italian word, and in Italy, a barista is a male or female "bartender", who typically works behind a counter, serving both hot drinks (such as espresso), and cold alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

The native plural in English is baristas, while in Italian the plural is baristi for masculine or mixed sex (baristi: "barmen", "bartenders") or bariste for feminine (bariste: "barmaids").

Application of the title

While the title is not regulated, most coffee shops use the title to describe the preparer of coffee and operator of an espresso machine.

Baristas generally operate a commercial espresso machine, and their role is preparing and pulling the shot; the degree to which this is automated or done manually varies significantly, ranging from push-button operation to an involved manual process. Espresso is a notoriously finicky beverage, and good manual espresso making is considered a skilled task. Further, preparation of other beverages, particularly milk-based drinks such as cappuccinos and lattes, but also non-espresso coffee such as drip or press pot, requires additional work and skill for effective frothing, pouring and most often latte art.

Blendo Games

Blendo Games is an American independent video game development company founded by Brendon Chung. Blendo Games has produced a number of mods for various games since the late 1990s. It gained more widespread exposure with the short form stand alone title Gravity Bone; his following games Flotilla and Atom Zombie Smasher were met with positive critical praise and named as top indie games for those years.

Background

Chung has been programming his own projects, and created the Blendo Games brand for these. In 2004, Chung was hired as a designer at Pandemic Studios but continued to work on his personal projects, releasing Gravity Bone during that time. When Electronic Arts closed down the studio in November 2009, Chung immediately set to work to create Flotilla, a game based on a prior project he has earlier ceased worked on. After Flotilla's release in 2010, Chung went on to create Atom Zombie Smasher, released in 2011. Atom Zombie Smasher received high critical praise, and was featured at the 2011 Penny Arcade Expo and part of the 3rd Humble Indie Bundle charity drive. A sequel to Gravity Bone, Thirty Flights of Loving, was developed to support a Kickstarter project for the Idle Thumbs podcast, and released in 2012.