Glorious coffee from Gloria Jean’s Dhaka

Glorious coffee from Gloria Jean’s

Faizul Khan Tanim is mesmerized, sipping on a hot cup of warmth and satiating the fruitilicious brain-freezing chillers from Gloria. Every sip reminds of how good coffee tastes and keeps us awake

Around 450 to 500 drinks are sipped each day – be it the classics cappuccino, café latte, espresso, macchiato; specialties Irish nut crème, white chocolate mocha; the classic hot chocolate with marshmallow glace or the espresso and fruit chillers like Voltage or Mango - the glorious Gloria Jean’s Coffees(GJC), conveniently located in Gulshan-1, is brewing plenty of coffee aficionados along with good cafe. And not so long ago (even five years back), it used to be the lounge decor overpowering the aroma of roasted black beans but that has changed with the soothing love affair between water and coffee beans, the right amount of steaming milk, with or without saccharin but plenty of affection is poured while preparing...they make sure that the drink don’t burn your lips and each quaff is smooth and worth cherishing.

Gloria is an Australian franchise since 1996 in Sydney and October 2012 in Dhaka. Till date, it has opened a mammoth figure of more than 900 coffee houses across 39 markets worldwide, including more than 400 coffee houses in Australia. Anyone walking in to GJ’s Dhaka outlet would know that they have had dynamite baristas on board to give you the maximum coffee moments and capuccino kicks.

Now, we Bangladeshis love our adda (informal chit-chats) over drinks, hot or chilled, full cream or decaf, and we love our cups be served with munchies, sweets or hard-core main dishes. So speaking to Irin Islam Chowdhury, executive-marketing of Navana Foods Ltd/Gloria Jean’s Coffees Bangladesh, “We specialize in brewing true coffee from honest and hand-picked beans but we started featuring food, along with our cakes and pastry due to the immense demand of the concept - drinks over food. Our menu changes quarterly but of course keeping the most popular items intact and one specific coffee blend – hazelnut latte, which did not start as big as our regular drinks but now is a complete hit. If we had a small auditorium concert called the ‘hazelnut lately’, i’m sure we would have all tickets sold out but fortunately, GJC is not a gig and we have immense supplies of this profound brew”.

“And what was there as a basic menu comprised of sweet items like Tia Maria cake, brownies or tarts...had to be negotiated with the wholesome arrangement of entree like tomato bruschetta, grilled chicken salad with balsamic vinegar, smoked chicken sandwich, Futtuccine Alfredo pasta, lamb cutlet up to mushroom rice with hot and sour meat ball to name a few, and to be honest, these items were interrogated, verified and validated from the land down under before we liberated them for South Asia’s Dhaka”, Chowdhury added with a grin.

The decor of Gloria is quite chic, atmospheric and most importantly, coffee friendly. It is one of those places you can sit alone, follow your favourite author or just be your spontaneous-combustion self and until and unless you are breaking glasses or littering floors, the friendly wait staffs will be persistently smiling and ask – would you like to have anything else?

http://theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=37&date=2013-05-10