For Gourmands: Digested Coffee Beans

Posted by John Farrier in Food & Drinks on May 6, 2009 at 1:03 pm


A cafe in Knoxville, Tennessee is offering a new caffeinated delight.  It’s coffee made from beans that have been, shall we say, processed through the digestive tract of a small Southeast Asian mammal prior to brewing:

Kopi luwak is named after the animal that gives the coffee its … uh … full body. The bright-red coffee cherries are eaten by the luwak, which is a cat-like relative of the mongoose in Southeast Asia.

After a few hours of digestion, the beans come out the other end. They’re picked up off the forest floor, cleaned and roasted. Because of this “all natural” processing, the coffee is said to have a rich and heavy flavor, with hints of caramel or chocolate.

“It’s delicious, amazing,” said the coffee shop owner Sharif Harb. “There’s no other coffee like it — rich, almost syrupy.”

Link via Instapundit


Previous post
this post? Please Email this               
Next post

Tags: ,


FUN PRODUCTS FROM THE NEATORAMA SHOP:


COMMENT

21 comments to "For Gourmands: Digested Coffee Beans"

  1. Kalel
    May 6th, 2009 at 1:07 pm

    Nothing more than a passing fancy.

  2. Gauldar
    May 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

    Poop coffee was listed on here before wasn't it?

  3. Shane
    May 6th, 2009 at 1:36 pm

    Ooh ooh...

    http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/drinks/b439/

  4. CheeseDuck
    May 6th, 2009 at 1:53 pm

    http://www.neatorama.com/2008/11/27/10-weird-gourmet-foods/

  5. caroline
    May 6th, 2009 at 1:53 pm

    Nothing new about this at all, it's an international delicacy and pretty common knowledge among coffee fans.

  6. Gauldar
    May 6th, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    Do they plan on setting up a breeding program and attempt to mass produce the stuff or are they monopolizing the industry on poo coffee like Debeers does with diamonds?

  7. Scotty A
    May 6th, 2009 at 2:06 pm

    Yikes. they pull this out every year! Yes!! We know about the civet poop coffee!!

  8. Talula
    May 6th, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    I saw this on the food network before. It's still gross.

  9. Mr. Jones
    May 6th, 2009 at 2:22 pm

    I'm sure it's delicious. If they strained the coffee grounds through a months-long unwashed gym sock, I'm sure it would even be more yummy.

  10. sushirama
    May 6th, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    I think it would be cool if we could get it after passing through other animals. Like tigers, rhinoceri, cheetahs, raccoons and gold fish. The price would be based on the processing capacity of the animal and the danger of retrieving the processed bean. Gold fish would be kind of high based the on the ability to process like a bean a week. Elephants would be a little bit lower in price at the off set but retrieving 200 pounds of processed beans from a pachyderm jacked up on the caffeine from 200 pounds of beans would raise the price back up.

  11. Becca
    May 6th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

    My boyfriend bought me a bag of this for my birthday a couple years ago. It really is the best coffee I've ever had; smooth and chocolaty with absolutely no bitterness at all, and strong, too. My only regret about it is that I made it in such small batches I never used it all up!

    For those who think it's gross, keep in mind that the sanitary procedures with which the beans are processed after being collected are far more rigorous than those used on normal coffee beans. They're almost completely sterile when they're packaged.

  12. Japlapdance
    May 6th, 2009 at 2:59 pm

    Golly! Poop beans? No foolin'?

    Hey, and guess what? There is this brand new thing out there, it's called...brace yourself..."sushi" and apparently it's mostly raw fish!

  13. DaveL
    May 6th, 2009 at 3:33 pm

    It deserved a repost as it now comes with 20% more poop processing.

  14. cuimhne
    May 6th, 2009 at 3:35 pm

    I can't believe you posted something so old -.- I've seen old articles on Neatorama before but not one that was about such common knowledge before....

  15. Clancy
    May 6th, 2009 at 4:17 pm

    I thought civet coffee was old news by now. it was featured in an episode of CSI 3 years ago.

  16. Frau
    May 6th, 2009 at 6:19 pm

    I solve the bitterness problem by throwing the shell of an egg in the pot.
    the darker the roast - the more bitter the coffee.

  17. Pat
    May 6th, 2009 at 6:32 pm

    anybody ever seen "The Bucket List"? that is what Jack Nicholson drinks.

  18. mostly cajun
    May 6th, 2009 at 9:04 pm

    There's a better alternative if you desire coffee processed through a digestive system. From Brazil comes "Jacu Bird Coffee". The jacu is a bird that coexists with coffee plantations and eats ripe beans, leaving processed coffee behind, since they're harvested from plantations that grow arabica beans instead of the less desirable robustas that they feed the civets, they start off with better coffee. Better, it HASN'T been touted on CSI or whatever, it doesn't sell for astronomical prices that kopi luwak brings, and it actually is a quite good coffee. google it.

    MC
    coffee nut

  19. LisaL
    May 6th, 2009 at 9:13 pm

    Isn't there another one where it's goats that eat the coffee, then poop it out.
    I'm sorry but EW.
    Just the fact that it was POO... POOOOOOO... I don't freakin care how "delicious" or chocolatey or whatever it is, that's just disgusting.

  20. John
    May 7th, 2009 at 7:59 am

    Collecting coffee beans for this product has got to be incredibly expensive. I live in the U.S., and shipping it from Malaysia has got to be much of the price alone.

    Maybe we could produce it domestically. Ship the beans up from Central America, and feed them to some other inexpensive animal. Or even unemployed humans.

  21. Fairtrade Coffee Beans
    September 23rd, 2009 at 8:23 am

    While the information in the blog is old news, I have ever so enjoyed the creativity shared by those commenting. Good stuff.


PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT

Neatorama Comment Policy
You don't have to register or login to comment, but it's easier if you do so. Comments aren't censored, but those that are abusive or off-topic may be edited or deleted.


Stay updated on the comments with Comment RSS