Spend more than five minutes with a group of Cortiians, and one of them will probably find themselves a cup of faran. It’s as ubiquitous as coffee on Earth, but probably tastes closer to a cross between chai and Spanish hot chocolate. Faran is more a bad habit than an addiction, given how difficult it is to addict a Cortiian to something, but it smells good, it tastes good, and it comes with enough of a stimulant jolt for even a Cortiian system to feel it. Plus, as you will have noticed if you’ve watched Anst in some discussions, a cup of faran is a great prop to hide your reactions behind if you happen to be cursed with an honest face.
Faran is made from the infused juice of the ground and boiled root of the ffor plant. Depending on how much you reduce the result, your drink will be more or less liquid. The way it’s usually drunk on a Cortiian Base, you could probably stand a knife up in it and it would take a few seconds to fall over.
The origins of ffor are unknown. By the time anyone bothered asking, it was spread across so many planets and stations that tracing it back would be tricky. For obvious reasons, it’s a popular drink with spacers, and it spread like a weed from wherever its point of origin was.
As it also grows like a weed, with a remarkable tolerance for a range of conditions, it follows new colonies with a minimum of fuss. Scientists across the galaxy have based adaptability studies on this plant, and several crops that would be otherwise unfeasible for stations or some colony worlds have been modified successfully to thrive.
Among its other uses, it’s a good ground cover, and will stabilise surfaces relatively quickly.
Faran, ladies and gents. Looks butt-ugly, but is basically indispensable for a range of reasons and may be one of the only things the Federated Planets Alliance and the Cortii agree on.
