Empire Affairs

New Beans!

Ethiopian Masha:

Masha Natural Organic and Rainforest Alliance–certified coffee comes from Masha Woreda Yeppo Village, a coffee farm owned by world-renown running champion Haile Gebrselassie. The land was a gift from the Ethiopian government, in thanks for his achievements representing Ethiopia. Among his accomplishments, Haile is a two-time Olympic champion, a four-time World Champion and the holder of 27 world records, for distances from 1,500 meters to the marathon.

Haile transformed the 1,500-hectares into a stunning coffee farm with 200 hectares of dedicated conservation forest land, through which the Gahamay and Bosoko rivers run.

Indian Monsoon Malabar!:

The color, shape, and size of these beans from India, as well as their aroma and taste, are the result of special post-harvest processing. Historically, coffee was shipped to Europe in wooden sailing vessels that took four to six months to sail around the Cape of Good Hope and up to their destinations. Stored below the water line and kept in an atmosphere made humid by seawater seeping through the wood, the beans underwent a transformation on their long journey to market. The bright-green beans would arrive pale gold, doubled in size and with an entirely new cup profile.

This “monsooning” process was later systematically replicated in India, with the goal of providing European customers with the cup profile they’d first become accustomed to from India and continued to demand.

Empire Affairs

New SemperVol Tech has arrived!


Always working to bring the latest advances to our inconvenience store offerings, The Jabali is pleased to present its new SemperVol packaging. Your breakfast sandwich will no longer get stuck on our patent non-pending cylindrical nutrition warming unit, burning on one side and getting cold on the other! Not with our new space-age aluminum foil technology. Only at participating locations.

Empire Affairs

My New Religion

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my new high holy days, the dual sabbaths when the garbage man comes to take my sins away.

He’s often a lowly figure from the bottom rungs of society, ignored mostly, except when he fails in his mission.

Unlike my previous messiah, I can see him and he responds when I beseech him to slow down as I run behind his truck as it pulls away.

I’m a Roamin’ Catch-All worshipper, there are those who have split away and say I should follow only the Recycler, but I remain faithful to the original Refuse Collector and his trinity. He accepts recycling on Thursday, all other waste on Tuesday and urges me to compost daily, as it is done at the landfill.

Next week: How will universal health care affect my auto insurance?