High-quality coffee is not the cheapest pleasure. Therefore, a product that is sold at a low price does not inspire confidence, since it is most often a counterfeit or made from low-quality raw materials. However, the prices for coffee made from animal feces are surprising and perplexing to the average population of the planet. Only a few can afford this exclusive product.
These are such exotic varieties of coffee that not everyone will dare to try them.
However, it roughly looks like this:
- Terra Nera from palm civet feces. The cost of 1000 g is impressive and reaches a value of more than 20 thousand dollars. It is sold only in one of the stores in the capital of Great Britain in exclusive packaging made of special thin silver paper.
- Black Ivory is a drink made from elephant dung. The cost of such coffee is more than $1,100 per 1 kg.
- Luwak is a coffee made from animal feces from Vietnam. Not everyone can afford elite Vietnamese coffee, since 1 kg of roasted raw material called Luwak costs around 250 – 1200 dollars. You can try it in very expensive restaurants or purchase it in the country of its production.
There are also many other expensive, but less popular varieties of coffee.
What animals “make” elite varieties of coffee?
Most elite varieties of coffee can be obtained by humans with the help of animals. Some of them have unique extrasensory perception and can find the finest grains. The most famous helpers in this matter are lemurs, monkeys, bats and even elephants. From an aesthetic point of view, many find it difficult to drink a drink made from grains that were once in animal droppings. However, coffee lovers claim that the taste of such drinks is amazing and incomparable to anything else.
Knowing which animal feces make delicious coffee, it’s easier to navigate prices and product names.
Elite Vietnamese coffee drink - Luwak from the droppings of the Musang animal
The secret is that musang loves to eat coffee berries. Indonesian Luwak coffee helps produce a certain type of marten called musang. Their habitat covers many regions of Southeast and South Asia. All gourmets agree that it is not a shame to serve this kind of coffee from Vietnam to the king. The production volume is small and does not exceed several hundred kilograms per year.
Coffee fruits are the favorite food of Malayan martens. They are very picky eaters; they will never eat green grains, but will choose the ripest and most delicious ones. In a day, a marten can eat about 900–1000 g of grains, more than 90% of which will be digested in the intestines of the animals, and only 5–10% will come out in its original form, but without pulp.
While in the digestive system of the animal, the fruits of the coffee tree are treated with gastric juice and special enzymes, which gives them unique taste properties.
It is interesting that grains are selected from the feces of females only for 6 months, and the rest of the time “girls” do not produce an odorous enzyme.
The collected grains are thoroughly washed, dried and fried using special technology. Details of the production and processing of raw materials are kept secret, but manufacturers promise purity and high quality of the finished product. The drink made from it has an elegant bouquet of flavors of sweet caramel, delicate vanilla and bitter dark chocolate.
Today they are trying to produce this coffee on an industrial scale. However, this drink differs from the one made naturally. Apparently, in captivity, animals are not so generous with enzymes.
"Black tusk" from elephant feces
It takes an elephant about 15-30 hours to digest coffee beans. This coffee is considered one of the most exclusive. It is sold only in a few stores in Thailand - the homeland of this brand - in a total amount of about 48 - 49 kg per year. These figures are not surprising, because to get 1000 g of coffee from elephant feces, the Thai giant needs to eat at least 34 kg of selected Arabica coffee fruits grown in the highlands. The process of collecting raw materials is unpleasant: after defecation, the wives of the elephant mahouts collect it and carefully sort through it, looking for surviving grains. Then the raw materials are washed and taken to another place for further drying.
Grains that are not digested in the elephant's body completely lose their bitterness, as stomach acid breaks down the proteins that give the drink a bitter taste.
Instead of the lost bitterness, the fruits of the coffee tree are saturated with the aromas of bananas, sugar cane and other tropical vegetation, which are so abundant in the animal’s menu. The grains stay in the elephant’s stomach for more than 20–30 hours, and this time is enough for them to completely change their properties. The resulting coffee has a soft, rich, delicate, slightly sweet taste without the usual bitterness.
You can try such an exclusive drink in just a few resorts in the Maldives. The beans are always ground right in front of the client so that he can fully appreciate the taste of the drink. A cup of freshly brewed coffee costs at least $50.
Terra Nera from palm civet feces
Due to special enzymes in the stomach and intestines of palm civets, coffee beans are processed. Coffee of this brand is rightfully considered the most expensive, since the amount of product sold is only 45 kg per year, which is due to the unique method of its production. This coffee is “produced” by palm civets that live in the southeastern part of Peru. The grains, having been inside these animals and coming out along with excrement, acquire a unique aroma of cocoa and hazelnuts. The collected raw materials are selected, cleaned and fried to the desired condition. Ready-made coffee is divided into 6 roast classes, and this must be indicated on the packaging.
The cost of one package starts from 11 thousand dollars. All bags of coffee are tied with laces with 24-karat gold tags, where information about the manufacturer and degree of roasting is engraved.
Blue Mountain Coffee from Jamaica
This coffee is obtained in the traditional way. However, everything affects the taste: the unique composition of the soil, the direction of the winds, and the location of the plantations. The grains combine different tastes - from bitterness to sweetness and sourness. The aroma of the drink is unusual and resembles the smell of fresh nectarines.
More than 85% of the product produced in Jamaica is sold in Japan, so purchasing such a drink in our country is problematic. In addition, 1 kg of finished raw materials costs about 27 thousand rubles.
Not everyone is able to try all the exotic types of coffee. In addition to the high cost, there is a great danger of purchasing a fake. Therefore, it is better to try this drink in the countries where it is produced.
In Sri Lanka, they organized an unusual, but very profitable business on... elephant dung. Of course, their whole life there is built around elephants! In every hotel, in every corner of the country, all the entertainment for tourists is elephants. And then someone came up with such a bright idea - to make paper from elephant cakes!
And this paper, as well as numerous products made from it, fly away with a bang. Like hot cakes, excuse me for the inelegant comparison)
Firstly, all elephant manure is collected from the fields, washed and dried. Now it doesn’t smell, you can touch it, but we didn’t do it just in case there was a fireman.
Then the substance is again filled with water, fermented, and heated until it reaches the desired consistency. Just in case, this happens behind bars, since the properties of elephant dung are not fully understood, and there is a fear that a new dangerous form of life may arise there.
Then in special bathrooms it is all settled and mulched. If you touch the substrate with your hand for a long time at this stage, a mustache will grow.
That's it, now you can touch and even write on the liquid without fear. The paper is almost ready, it's time to dry it. To do this, it is poured into special forms and left in the sun.
After a couple of days, the almost finished product is taken out and passed through bulky hand presses.
It turned out to be quite real paper. The truth is very relief and textured. The inclusions are apparently the remains of the breeding elephant's breakfast)
Now we need to make a product out of this paper that tourists will like. Basically, these are, of course, notebooks, envelopes and albums.
Many people have heard about paper frames made from elephant excrement, but for coffee... However, coffee that has passed through the intestines of an elephant exists! But are you willing to pay US$50 for a cup of coffee made from elephant dung? Be free from prejudice! Coffee beans that have passed through the digestive tract of an elephant make coffee much tastier, say knowledgeable people.
Coffee beans were used as food for elephants in the Golden Triangle area by the Asian Elephant Foundation, in the Golden Triangle Conservation Area in Chiang Rai.
Have you heard about coffee made from civet cats? These are "outdated" traditions! Now it is much more interesting to talk about coffee made from beans that have been digested by an elephant.
At least that’s what they say in the Anantara resort area in Thailand, where they clarify that they get their grains from the elephant camp in the Golden Triangle in Chiang Rai.
"Research shows that during digestion, elephant enzymes break down coffee protein," one of the hotels said in a press release. "Since protein is one of the main factors responsible for the bitterness of coffee, less protein means almost no bitterness."
But bitterly free coffee comes at a price. And Black Cat, the name given to elephant dung coffee, sells for $1,100 per kilogram - or $50 per cup - making it one of the most expensive in the world.
By comparison, civet coffee - which is made with the same concept: the animal eats the coffee, digestion breaks down the proteins - sells for about $500-$600 per kilogram, or $30 per cup.
For now, Black Ivory is only available at four Anantara resorts in the Maldives, in addition to the Golden Triangle resorts in northern Thailand.
Guests of Anantara who decide to order a cup of Black Ivory will see how the grains are poured by hand and boiled using a traditional siphon.
The seed preparation process itself begins with the selection of top Thai Arabica, grains that were collected at an altitude of 1500 meters. Elephants readily eat them, and before they are digested, they are excreted from the body.
The grains are picked up by the mahouts from the camp and their wives, then dried in the sun.
To date, the sale of coffee made from elephant excrement provides income to 30 elephants, along with their mahouts and their families. The obvious question that comes out of all this is: Is it dangerous to get a herd of elephants hooked on caffeine? Anantara's director, John Roberts, addressed this issue in a recent blog post, saying that it was originally related to the question of "what are we going to do with 26 very angry elephants who didn't eat coffee for breakfast on the days when No?
But to extract caffeine from coffee beans, it must be heated to a temperature above 70 C. Therefore, coffee beans are not dangerous to elephants.
Would you pay $1,100 per kilogram of coffee to get rid of bitterness? Have you ever tried Kopi Luwak coffee that passed through the digestive tract of an animal called a civet cat? Share your coffee experiments in the comments.
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The most expensive coffee in the world, called Black Tusk, is made from coffee beans eaten and digested by Thai elephants, and costs $1,100 per kg. The exotic drink has a rich, soft taste thanks to the digestion process in the intestines of the elephant.
“When an elephant eats coffee beans, the acid in its stomach breaks down the proteins in the coffee, which gives the drink a bitter taste,” the experts explained. “The result is coffee with a very smooth taste without the bitterness of a typical drink.”
The most expensive and delicious coffee in the world is very similar to another type of coffee, Kopi Luwak, which is obtained from the excrement of musang animals. However, the elephant's stomach has a slight advantage in this regard. On average, it takes the animal about 15–30 hours to digest the coffee berries, which are simmered along with bananas, sugar cane and other ingredients in a typical elephant's vegetarian diet to create a unique, rich and fruity flavor.
This rare type of coffee can be tasted only at four resorts in the world: three in the Maldives and one in Thailand, and a cup of this drink is not cheap - $50.
Why is it so expensive? Firstly, keeping elephants in a reserve is expensive. Secondly, the elephants are fed only Thai Arabica coffee grown at an altitude of 1500 m. In addition, the elephants need to eat about 32 kg of coffee fruits to produce 1 kg of coffee beans.
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Have you ever wondered how elephants shit? The question, of course, is philosophical. Well-mannered elephants shit in the toilet, and ill-mannered elephants shit right on the street. Gee-gee. Okay, much more interesting - how much shit can an adult elephant shit? Let's figure it out
As they write in pseudo-scientific sources, an adult elephant shits 110 kg of fresh shit in a day! Wow! That's more than the average person weighs! This amount of elephant poop can fertilize an entire farm. It's much healthier than just flushing poop down the drain.
Elephants pooping is a great force! The main thing is not to stand in the way of a shitting elephant, otherwise the consequences can be very dire.
For example, if you just gape, an elephant can immediately crap on you.
Elephants suffering from constipation are especially dangerous. At first they may not shit for a long time, lowering the vigilance of the workers serving them, and then they can pile up a huge pile of shit. True, constipation in elephants is quite rare, and very radical methods are often used to treat them...
But immediately after constipation, you are guaranteed an avalanche of elephant shit! The main thing is to jump back in time, which is not always possible...
Thus, elephants poop a lot, a lot - 110 kg of shit per day! And they fart a lot too - 2 cubic meters of methane per day! Walking shit factories, in a word Eh, this would be shit - yes, for the dacha, for fertilizer, and intestinal gases - for refueling the family car with biogas.
Well, do you want to get yourself an elephant? A useful animal in the household. In any case, you definitely won’t experience a shortage of shit
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