Elephant Poop Coffee!

If aliens ever visited Earth, this would be one of the things humans do that is impossible to explain. So here goes!

Over in Thailand, a herd of elephants are pooping coffee beans. That's because a guy named Blake Dinkin is FEEDING them coffee beans!

The idea is that the digestive juices of an elephant alter the indigestible beans and make them tastier. So the pooped beans are better than the unpooped beans!

Makes sense, right? No? Well, how about this: Elephant poop coffee costs $500 a pound.

Oh, NOW it makes sense! (Photo via.)

What does brewed luwak poop taste like? I'm glad you asked!

Over at BoingBoing, Maggie Koerth-Baker has a post about drinking brewed luwak poop. You know, the most expensive coffee in the world?

As I’ve written about here and in The Big Book of Gross Stuff, the luwak is a civet (think of a cross between a weasel and a cat) that lives in Southeast Asia. And it likes to eat the fruit of the coffee tree. You see, coffee trees actually grow fruit. As the fruit ripens, it looks sort of like a cherry. And the coffee “bean” is a pit INSIDE of the fruit!

So the luwak climbs coffee trees, eats the fruit, and then poops out the indigestible “beans”.

By Mandy.

As the coffee beans go through the animal’s digestive system, stomach acids give the bean a special flavor. And if you collect those beans AFTER they’ve been pooped, the coffee will supposedly be smooth and chocolaty.

Ms. Koerth-Baker says that her local coffee shop sells these beans for $420 a pound! Curious, she decided to have a cup of the stuff. Here’s what she found:

• There is a difference in flavor. Kopi Luwak is noticeably not bitter. Swallow a sip, and it's like you just drank some water. There's no sting or heavy flavor left in the back of your throat . . . . As my husband put it, "Everything that is wrong with cheap gas station coffee is right about this."
• That difference is totally not worth the price. Again, to quote my husband, "If . . . $420 a pound represented a much smaller amount of my time worked, I'd probably drink this. As it is, not worth it."

Illustration for The Big Book of Gross Stuff

by the ebullient Russ Miller.

Leave That Luwak's Poop Alone!

As I write about in The Big Book of Gross Stuff, the world’s most expensive coffee beans are found in poop. And that means someone has to pick the beans OUT of the dookie!

Here’s how it works: In Southeast Asia lives a civet (think of a cross between a weasel and a cat) that likes to eat the fruit of the coffee tree. You see, coffee trees actually grow fruit. As the fruit ripens, it looks sort of like a cherry. And the coffee “bean” is a pit INSIDE of the fruit!

Anyway, the civet (which is called a luwak) likes to climb coffee trees, eat the fruit, and then poop out the indigestible “beans”.

But as the coffee beans go through the animal’s digestive system, stomach acids give the bean a special flavor. And if you collect those beans AFTER they’ve been pooped, the coffee will supposedly be “smooth and chocolaty.”

Of course it’s chocolaty— it came from POOP!

Anyway, collecting civet poop is turning into big business in Indonesia and the Philippines. Those beans sell for over $200 a pound! And this is setting off debates. Should civets be caged and fed the coffee fruit?

I say NO! Wild civet poop is WAY better…plus, I feel bad for the animal pictured above. Can you imagine being put in a cage and then having your caretaker poke through your poop each day? (I get enough of that at home as it is!)

Photo and map from the New York Times.