And the winner is...
Congratulations to Mr. Richard Alexander from Alexandria, Virginia!

Drawn at random from hundreds of correct entries, Mr. Alexander is the winner of our 3rd Annual Great Pumpkin Contest!

Mr. Alexander, a network engineer for the US Army loves coffee. He and his wife already own a Rancilio Silvia and a Rocky Grinder, so he plans to take the new Gaggia Carezza and Baratza Maestro Plus to work or to the in laws' house for a "real coffee there."

The Answer:
More than 30% of the entries submitted to us by Halloween were correct - 99,216 cups of coffee can be made using Farmer Lou’s age-old pumpkin pie recipe.

So, in the instance you stumble upon a four-acre pumpkin patch, filled with 5,856 small pumpkins and only one great pumpkin, decide to make pumpkin pie using Farmer Ted’s creamy pie recipe, drink a cup of coffee with every slice of pie you cut from the 12,402 whole pies, you’ll end up drinking 99,216 cups of coffee.

Wow! That’s a lot of coffee!

Congratulations again to Mr. Alexander and thanks for all of the entries. See you next year!

The Return of the Great Pumpkin:
For the third year in a row, Whole Latte Love will give math gurus and coffee addicts a chance to win a new espresso machine. Not only that, this year we’re throwing in a grinder too! So put on your thinking caps and try to solve this algebraic equation. If your answer is correct, you’re eligible to win a Gaggia Carezza and Baratza Maestro Plus Grinder.

The Problem:
Pumpkins were plentiful this year at Goat Hill Farms in Marion, New York. In fact, the four-acre pumpkin patch yielded 366 small pumpkins per quarter acre. Unfortunately, Farmer Lou was only able to grow one great pumpkin this year. Each small pumpkin yields 3.7 cups of pumpkin puree when hollowed out. The great pumpkin yields 36.9 cups of pumpkin puree when hollowed out. If you were to drink a cup of coffee with every slice of pie made from all the pumpkins in Farmer Lou’s patch using his age-old pumpkin pie recipe, how many full 8 oz cups of coffee would you end up drinking, assuming you sliced each whole pie into eight equal slices?

Farmer Lou’s Creamy Pumpkin Pie Recipe:

• 1 unbaked 10-inch pie shell
• 14 oz of homemade pumpkin puree
• 6 oz firmly packed brown sugar
• 5 oz cream cheese
• 3 eggs
• 12 oz half and half
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves
• dash of salt

Bake 350° for 50 minutes

Hint: Assume the density of pumpkin puree is equal to that of water

To Enter:
Simply send the correct answer to greatpumpkin@wholelattelove.com by 11:59 PM on October 31, 2007. You may enter the Great Pumpkin Contest as many times as you like. A winner will be drawn at random from correct entries and notified November 1, 2007.

Good Luck!