Happy Sunday, everyone, and what a nice Sunday it is: most of you reading this have tomorrow off as Labor Day holiday, so the weekend’s far from over!
If you missed any of the daily news we posted this past week, here’s your chance to relax and catch up. Grab a cup of your favorite coffee and let’s get started.
Once again, we started the week with heavy hearts, as news of Emelyne Smith’s untimely passing sunk in. A barista at Joe Coffee in New York, Emelyne was beloved, and will be remembered forever by her coworkers, friends, and family. To read my memorial to her, go here.
On Tuesday, we shared some advice on how you can host your own barista jam, straight from the mouth of Nathan Howes, who has been successfully organizing and producing barista jams in Montana for the past few years. To see what Nathan has to say on doing it right, go here.
We got a jump start on this week’s Humpday Giveaway contest when we announced what the prize would be: $559 toward Barista Camp registration! This most generous gift was offered up by a very kind advocate of baristas who has worked in the industry for many years, and who asked to remain anonymous. Isn’t it nice to know there are people like that out there? To find out more, go here.
And then it was Wednesday, which around here means it’s time for Barista Magazine’s weekly Humpday Giveaway contest! We posed a trivia question to you folks out there, and loads of you entered, hoping to win the amazing prize of $559 toward Barista Camp registration! To see the interactions, go here.
On Thursday morning, we excitedly talled all the names of you guys who entered Humpday Giveaway, drew one lucky name, and voila! Renee Gabel of Beans & Cream Coffeehouse in Wisconsin was the big winner! I contacted Renee, who was so excited about winning. She talked to her boss, who kindly offered to pay the remaining $300 of camp registration, plus Renee’s travel to Barista Camp in October! Look for an article by Renee about her experience in an upcoming issue!
Later that day, we got some exciting news about format changes to the United States Regional Barista Competitions! For the scoop, go here.
And we were stoked to hear about how Bird Rock Coffee Roasters in San Diego, Calif., is taking specialty, hand-crafted coffee to the big leagues ”er, rather, to Petco Park, home of the city’s baseball team, the Padres! To learn more, go here.
Barista Magazine’s Publisher Kenneth R. Olson wrote an eloquent editorial for Friday about our feelings about traveling on behalf of our magazine to countries whose politics we don’t agree with. Coffee and politics shouldn’t, and don’t often, mix, but given that Sarah is headed to Moscow, Russia, on Sunday to cover the Specialty Coffee Show in Red Square, and we’ve been asked why we’re going when Russia has such strict laws against supporting gay rights, Kenneth thought we ought to address it. If you haven’t already read it, we encourage you to do so. Please, go here.
And on that topic of Russia, we wrote about the educational and competitive events taking place in just a few weeks in Russia at the Moscow Coffee & Tea Show. To learn more about these exciting opportunities, go here.
And that, friends, wraps up a busy week of news on Barista Magazine’s blog. Stay tuned for more news, every day, here on our blog from events and people around the world! Next up: Sarah’s adventures in Moscow with 10 barista champions; the second installment of the Rialta Coffee Tour, a great Humpday Giveaway prize pack, and much, much more!
