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Along with tasting notes, our coffees come with memory notes—a mouthful of words to contextualize what you’re drinking.

Ethiopian Escape

The boundaries of the sixth borough have been argued over for centuries: Far Rockaway, Yonkers, even Miami – but that one’s a joke, sort of. No one ever quite gets it; the sixth borough has always been right there, under their feet. Lift any manhole cover, lower yourself down, and there you’ll be in permanent subterranean twilight.

Today, she’s on a mission to find a peach – those aren’t easy to grow when there’s no sunlight. Apparently there are some near the Chrysler at a striped market stall that also sells milk chocolate, but that’s got to be the nuttiest rumor she’s ever heard. People haven’t so much as dreamed of chocolate since Hershey left the country.

She’s already secured one ingredient, the lime zest. It took quite some doing, the Stewards are a tricky bunch to negotiate with. Having made it all the way to the Chrysler, she can’t resist a detour: clambering up to the 61st floor, she wiggles onto the broad head of a steel eagle. How far is Ethiopia from here?

She crosses her fingers that she won’t be spotted, especially on the eve of the mayor’s wedding – she’s supposed to be neck-deep in the kitchens making the cake. If all goes as planned, he’ll be dead before the first dance and she’ll be on a cargo plane heading east.