It’s Time for Humpday Giveaway! – May 1st Edition

Well, we made it to another Wednesday, and that can only mean one thing: It’s time to play Humpday Giveaway! Woohoo!

We’re really excited to tell you what’s up for grabs for this week’s Humpday Giveaway ”but first, the back story. Since we started hosting Humpday Giveaway here on Barista Magazine’s blog every Wednesday, folks have approached us asking if they can donate the prize sometime. We think this is just about the nicest thing ever!

Kyle from Bean Link was one of those people. He emailed us a few weeks ago asking if he could donate a pretty awesome prize: a 3-month subscription to Bean Link, which means 3 separate packages of coffee and chocolate. Yes, please!

Based in Canada, Kyle got started in coffee while traveling through Australia and New Zealand. He shared some of his backstory with us.

I realized there was more than typical Tim Hortons Coffee, he says. I was able to use this beat up espresso machine at the hostel I worked at, and they allowed me to make drinks for the staff. When I came back from my travel, I continued into this crazy world and started working for a coffee roaster in Toronto. I took over accounts management and had my fair share of all aspects of coffee making.

Recently, my partner Katie (who is a chocolatier) and I traveled by VW Van across Canada and USA, meeting up with industry professionals and found what we thought were the best beans for both coffee and chocolate. We ended up driving over 16,000km (10000 miles) in this van, in the cold, shitty weather really. We were rear ended but kept trucking along, all the way down to California and back up to Salt Lake City, where the Van didn’t want to drive any more.

After getting ourselves back home we extended our coffee and cacao tour to Africa, where we went on our own to network and source both coffee and cacao. We spent 5 weeks traveling through Kenya and Tanzania, which was an incredible and humbling experience.

We source the coffee and chocolate from the travel we did but also from recommendations from like-minded individuals. We love to taste and experiment and will actually be launching a cold brew in the near future.

We thought what Kyle and Katie are doing sounded pretty cool! Coffees Bean Link has featured in their rotation include Four Barrel, Coffee Slingers, Bows & Arrows, and other small and unique microroasters. And the chocolate selections have been just as awesome: Hummingbird Chocolate, Raaka, and Potomac Chocolate are among Katie’s selections.

The winner of this week’s Humpday Giveaway will receive a 3-month subscription to Beanlink.me, and will be sent 2/3 pound bags of coffee from 2 different roasters, and a bar of handcrafted chocolate ”and you get that three months in a row!!

Alright, so now we know the prize and a little something about who donated it. Let’s get to this week’s question:

In the April + May 2013 issue of Barista Magazine, Sam Penix of Everyman Espresso wrote a Field Report about a trip he took to Nicaragua. When he was there, he found out Nicaraguans use a fairly unique term to measure field sizes. What is it?

Leave your answers here as a comment in response to this blog post. We also need a first and last name if you want to win our drawing. You can enter anytime between now and 7am Thursday, May 2 PDT. We’ll do a drawing and announce the winner at 10am Thursday, May 2. Good luck!