Coffea cabina

Coffea cabina is a coffee plant distantly related to Coffea tiberis, but having undergone an extensive modification and hybridization process by Triangulum scientists to ensure its survival in the cool climate and devastated biosphere of Cabina. Cabina's Ankhayat family once closely guarded its growth and secrets, but has recently introduced an initiative to increase coffee cultivation expertise throughout Cabina.

See also: Coffee in Acheron Rho

History

Several generations ago, Archevox Eridanus Ancaiatta Solon, an individual many still refer to as “that mad Eridanus noble” came to Cabina with plans to extend Tiber’s coffee empire to the frontier planet. In cooperation with Triangulum scientists, he worked to hybridize a coffee bean that would thrive in the cold-to-temperate climate of the planet and in its slowly recovering biosphere. This new strain of coffee plant became known as "Coffea cabina." Solon's descendents -- a wide and confusing network of Viscounts and Discounts and freemen, their name now localized to “Ankhayat” -- worked to shepherd the growth and development these coffee plants on their family’s land. They eventually began spreading the hardiest versions of these plants to other biodome and biosphere restoration projects, through a maze of both official contracts and backchannel handshakes.

Biology

There are three main sub-species of the Cabinan Coffee Plant adapted and specialized for the local environment:

Coffea cabina toterrae

Often known as simply Coffea cabina, Coffea cabina toterrae is the official scientific name for the Common Cabinan Coffee Plant. It takes its sub-species name from the planet's sole continent, Toterra. These coffee bushes are smaller than the typical Tiberian coffee plant, adapted for the colder weather of Cabina, and help to process and neutralize various elements of dioxin poisoning present in the biosphere. They are grown everywhere that the Ankhayats can convince individuals to grow them -- large plantations, smaller mainland settlements, archipelago communities, and within biodomes.

Coffea cabina canomeris

A mangrove-coffee hybrid, most commonly found surrounding the archipelago islands of Cabina’s ocean. Canomeris forests are also present in various continental deltas, with an especially extensive network at the mouth of the Canomere river (from which the plant gets its name). The canomeris strain has been particularly successful in areas where coral reefs are being reestablished. The deep roots of the plant are adapted for processing dioxin pollutions, and the integration of mangroves and coral reefs helps to stabilize both of these entrants into ecosystem and provides valuable habitat for marine fauna.

Coffea cabina maromnis

A kelp-coffee hybrid, taking its name from the planet’s ocean. It mainly grows off the coast of equatorial-band archipelago communities, but is also cultivated by communities that make their homes along the frozen coastlines and oceans of the arctic caps. Saline-resistant coffee beans grow just under the air-pockets of the towering kelp, and these are clipped from the stalks by trained divers before being being dried and processed. This crop is particularly popular with immigrants from Shan, Intaglio, Yakiyah, and Aomori, many of whom bring to Cabina long cultural experience in kelp cultivation. These communities also specialize in harvesting of the kelp portion of the plants.

Cultivation and Processing

The League of Frontier Towns

SEE ARTICLE: Caffeine Wars Hit Their Boiling Point? (Twitter Link)

During this period of chaos following the CHR's dissolution, the Ankhayats approached townships and settlements on the Cabina Frontier, proposing deals in which these settlements would coffee to their biospheres and farms, or even wholly replace tea crops with coffee crops. The towns which agreed to this arrangement called themselves the "League of Frontier Towns," and in banding together over caffeine products, they also found themselves capable of having a larger voice in Cabina's political sphere, and able to better assert and protect other common frontier interests.

In response to the formation of the League of Frontier Towns, Cabina Cups Tea also approached frontier settlements. Those that reaffirmed alignment with Cabina Cups called their own coalition the "Towns of the Frontier League," and became a similarly influential political lobbying bloc.

Ankhayat Foundation for Excellence in Cultivation

This is a largescale educational and apprenticeship initiative, established in partnership with other SERAPH entities, Cabinan charity schools, and the Cabinan government. The Ankhayats began this project in recognition that coffee is a newer crop to Cabina, and that successful widespread introduction of the crop would require increased cultural and institutional expertise. The purpose of AFEC is to jumpstart this process, rapidly imparting knowledge and building up experience in coffee production among a wide swath of the Cabinan populace, particularly those who will be growing coffee in the many distributed places across the Cabinan frontier.

The foundation has a large, well-financed campus with shining buildings in Lux Gravare, Cabina, with quick transport to Lux Gravare processing facilities. On the campus, students learn the history and techniques of coffee growth and production, including practical training in greenhousing, cultivation, sorting, production, and roasting. In addition, students then spend months on-site either on Ankhayat lands or partnering settlements on the frontier, as part of apprenticeship in local cultivation. Additional apprenticeships in coffee processing centers in Lux Gravere and Gadalfo facilities are also available.

Some have been skeptical at this approach by the Ankhayats, which would seem to dilute their potential market share and trade secrets. The Ankhayats have been nonplussed by the criticism, arguing that at this juncture it is more important to impart coffee-production knowledge to Cabina as widely as possible. Cabina’s hostile climate makes it all the more important, they say, to experiment and discover new methods of helping coffee survive and thrive on Cabina. Should a smaller endeavor experiment and succeed, the Ankhayats are confident that they can buy out the operation, or crush the competition...or that they can count on any still-resistant competing coffee operation to be soon crushed by Cabina Cups Tea, given Ms. Minty Repentance’s known vendetta against the beverage. Presented with the protection of Ankhayat branding, or annihilation by Cabina Cups, most small coffee planters eventually align with the Ankhayats.

Bostra

A large frontier settlement largely formed of Tiber and Demnoph emigrants, with a fair amount of pre-established knowledge of coffee-growth, and one of the first broad successes of the Ankhayats in introducing their coffee plant to Cabina. A hub of plantations and drying/processing centers.

Gadalfo Processing Facilities

In this city are a multitude of processing and roasting factories. These primarily handle coffee from the larger coffee plantations and projects in the Ankhayat network. These facilities are where the most unified blends and roasts are created. Also in Gadalfo is a sprawling industry devoted to recycling the coffee wastewater from any wet processing procedures. Fertilizers (specifically designed for Cabinan ecology) and refined mucilage are among the most common end-use products.

Ankhayat Coffee Company

Cabina Coffee Initiative

In 3200, during The Church of Humanity Repentant's dissolution, Quantess Eridanus Ankhayat Kirsten called together a small group of select governmental advisors, corporate sponsors, and members of the press, and made the following announcement:

My great-great-great grandfather, Archevox Eridanus Ancaiatta Solon, came to Cabina with a dream. A dream of freedom, of faith, and of coffee. In the generations since his arrival, the members of our increasingly extended family have worked to progress this dream, through paths both direct and indirect.

We would never wish this present chaos on the planet, nor on the church, nor on its associated corporate entities. Yet in this time of upheaval there is also great opportunity, for those with the courage and initiative to present solutions, rather than problems. For generations my family has worked quietly within the CHR’s  Department of Property and the governor's office to ensure flexible and fair usage of land, while at the same time collaborating with the CHR Department of Xenology in its plant hybridization projects. Now is the time to use these connections. Now is the time to secure the future of Cabina...and the future of coffee. I am proud to announce, in the name of the Ankhayat family: Coffee is coming to Cabina.

Following the announcement, the Ankhayat family begun actively hiring individuals to staff its newly purchased harvesting and roasting infrastructure, much of which was purchased from former CHR projects nearing bankruptcy. They also co-wrote detailed government initiatives, organized from the governor’s office, sponsoring extensive coffee planting and production in both biodome projects and restored tracts of land.

Branding Disputes

Cabina Coffee Company logo

The Ankhayat family found that they needed to put part of their operations under an official incorporated name and entity to continue expanding their plans in various directions. Their lawyers, however, misspelled the name on their application as "Anhkayat Coffee Company." Ms. Minty Repentance of Cabina Cups Tea Company, catching wind of this news, jumped in and acquired both the names "Ankhayat Coffee Company" and "Ankhayat Coffee" herself, to deny her upstart competitors the use of the branding.

Locked in a legal battle that seemed interminable, the Ankhayat family finally registered the name "Cabina Coffee Company" as an interim placeholder, to cover any incorporated aspects of their caffeinated ambitions.

Ankhayat Coffee Company logo

After many weeks of escalating hostilities with Cabina Cups Tea Company, the two companies eventually signed a tenuous and contentious compromise concerning various details of off-world shipping, market expansion, and utilization of Cabinan land. As part of this agreement, the Cabina Coffee Company became a founding stakeholder of SERAPH. This did not resolve the legal battle over the Ankhayat name, however, which continued for another month as both companies' lawyers scrutinized law and precedent to make their case.

Eventually the matter was decided in the Ankhayat's favor, some say due to Ms. Minty Repentance ceding her claim in return for a generous donation and other concessions, and some say due to the Ankhayats agreeing that the Cabina Cups employee about to marry Emil Ankhayat, Ms. Alyssa's "James" Bloom, would take on the surname "Alyssabloom" as part of going through the Ritual of Eternal Spring. The soon-to-be newly-minted Discount James Alyssabloom has refused to comment on the matter.

The Ankhayats now own the trademarks to "Ankhayat Coffee," "Ankhayat Coffee Company," and "Cabina Coffee Company," and often use them interchangeably.

Ankhayat Merchant Fleet

"Wherever our freighters dock to unload this precious cargo, you can rest assured that SERAPH humanitarian services will expand along with it. Help is on its way, and there will be coffee for all! On Wings of Hope."

—SERAPH press release, December 3200

In the winter of 3200, Ankhayat Coffee partnered with SERAPH to build and contract the use of new line of merchant ships. SERAPH retains the ability to use these ships for emergency purposes, but the contract places most routine control in the hands of Ankhayat Coffee, which will use them to transport coffee-related cargo to and from the Benilli system, as well as volunteering cargo and crew space to various SERAPH humanitarian services.

Mentions in the News:

• BREAKING NEWS: The Future Coffee Quantess of Cabina? (Twitter link)
  • The Ankhayat family makes deals with the Cabinan government and using its connections in the CHR bureaucracy take control land formerly overseen by the CHR.
• BREAKING NEWS: Caffeine Wars Hit Their Boiling Point?! (Twitter link)
  • Cabina Cups Tea Company and Ankhayat Coffee unify many settlements and homesteads on the Cabina Frontier into power blocs that will support their respective interests.
• BREAKING NEWS: Psiball Team Seeks New Sponsor (Twitter link)
  • Kirsten Ankhayat volunteers to double whatever Ms. Minty Repentance is offering for the Cabina Fever psiball team.
• BREAKING NEWS: First Candidates For Cabina Governor Present Themselves! (Twitter link)
  • Emil Ankhayat runs for governor of Cabina on a platform of freer trade and coffee expansion.
• BREAKING NEWS: Trilliant Ring Announces Joint Venture with Cabina Cups! (Twitter link)
  • Cabina Cups Tea Company makes a move to expand its shipping and influence into the Trilliant Expanse, frustrating some Ankhayat expansion plans in the process.
• BREAKING NEWS: Caffeine Wars About to Burst? Conflict Boils Over into Street Brawls! (Twitter link)
  • Cabina Cups Tea blockades coffee shipments! Ankhayat Coffee seizes marketing drones! Riots in the streets!
• BREAKING NEWS: Piping Hot Love?? (Twitter link)
  • The lead negotiators for Cabina Cups and Ankhayat Coffee have been making love, not war. Their respective companies are less than pleased.
• ELECTION REPORT: Results of the Election for Cabina Governor! (Twitter link)
  • The Grand Chemex is elected, and sets about restoring some order to things (especially things related to caffeine and aliens).
• BREAKING NEWS: Caffeine Conflict Concluded! (Twitter link)
  • Cabinan charities, the new Cabinan governor, and the caffeinated lovebirds force Cabina Cups Tea and Ankhayat Coffee to sit down and reach a resolution. Locked in a room together, the founding entities of SERAPH eventually devise and sign the agreements and compromises that create SERAPH.
• BREAKING NEWS: Grand Gathering on Cabina? (Twitter link)
  • The founding members of SERAPH work to gather additional charities and corporations under their banner, and to acquire sponsorship/blessing from Repentant sects.
• SERAPH Founding Press Release (Twitter link to document) (Twitter link to video)
  • Consortium of Charities, Cabina Cups Tea Company, Cabina Coffee Company, with Support of Cabinan
    Government, Announce they are Uniting to Form a New Charitable Society.