Gourmet Coffee from a Monkey’s Butt
Kopi Luwak, the most expensive gourmet coffee in the world, flies out of the butt of a monkey.
Actually, the palm civet, which hand picks and eats the coffee beans, is more closely related to a mongoose than a monkey. Nevertheless, the beans it doesn’t digest are excreted. Then harvesters pick them out of the droppings, wash them off, and…make coffee!
|
Studies have found that the beans undergo chemical changes in the digestive system of the animal. Supposedly, this makes the coffee less bitter. But, blind tests by professional tasters haven’t been positive.
The end result (pun intended) goes for around $50 a cup, or $300 a pound. Most people agree limited availability and notoriety drives up the price, not taste. |
|
The palm civet lives in the islands of Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, the Philippines, Vietnam, and some coffee estates in south India.
Read more Amasnic Fact Offs: Amasnic Fact Off Archive.
Read More: Kopi Luwak, coffee, palm civet, monkey, Sumatra, Java
Related Articles
