One of the enduring mysteries surrounding Quantum Coffee LLC GmbH of Dimension X has been its lack of an alkaline beverage counterpart to its famous low-pH molecular acid CaustiCoffee™. Its use by the Hegemony to degrime hyperspace engines of dark matter residue aside, CaustiCoffee™ has been elevated to the status of a cultural touchstone by the Rypl and the 4Ploq. Sales have been strong despite the fact that it eats through most life forms like a starving man through a buffet.

But the multiverse is just as full of creatures with a strongly alkaline or basic biochemistry. The $%^& of $%^&lith, for example, require an environment with a 14 pH to survive; they slip into a coma and die at 13.999. The hyperspace-native merchant race known as the Squibbians require strongly alkaline food, and their 17-foot-tall lopsided and betentacled forms are a common sight on hyperspace-aware worlds and trading stations. One might also single out the Northuos, a race unfairly maligned as interdimensional crime lords when only 87% of them practice that vocation, who find a high-pH soak-and-rub to be invigorating.

And yet Quantum Coffee LLC GmbH only produced BaseBrew™ Coffee for a few years, from Multiversal Standard Interval 1337 to MSI 1340. Their marketing efforts, including free magnetic containment cups to keep the alkaline beverage from corroding away ordinary mugs, slick TV commercials featuring L47-P the WisecrackBot, and sponsorship of the HyperBowl, all came to naught. Sales remained in the septic tank, so much so that some Quantum affiliates had dropped it within two weeks of “B-Day,” its much-heralded rollout.

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