For Sale: Coffee From Partially Digested Beans

[IRiSHMaFIA]

Here's a real eye opener for your Monday morning commute: How about a cup of coffee that goes for $10 per cup. Fans enjoy it for its smooth and unique taste. But many try not to think about how it's made: from coffee beans eaten partially digested by Indonesian cats.

A Minnesota roaster is serving offering the most expensive coffee in the world, but price isn't the only reason people might shy away from it.

An 8-ounce cup of Kopi Luwak coffee sells for $10 at Jim Cone's "Coffee and Tea Limited" store in Minneapolis. One-pound bags go for $420.

Roastmaster Jim Cone told CBS News: "We roast it to, ah, about 420 degrees. It's a very rich, ah, cup of coffee, very chocolaty, ah, actually a carmelly taste around the bottom of your tongue."

Cone says fans enjoy it for its smooth and unique taste. But many try not to think about how it's made.

Kopi Luwak comes from Indonesia and is also called Civet coffee because the beans are eaten by Civet cats. The cats love red coffee beans, especially the skin. It's this exterior that's processed in the cat's digestive system and discharged.

Cone said, "There's a skin on the pulp and that's what's really digested in their system. And the bean is inside that. After they've processed them in their body, uh, people pick them up and clean 'em."

The collected partially digested beans are exported all over the world.

"I'm trying to block that thought from my head at the moment," said coffee drinker Alex Danzberger.

Kopi Luwak isn't offered at major chains like Starbucks, which is probably just as well for the average coffee drinker.

"I'm really interested because of the way that it's processed," said, coffee lover Bonnie Riley. "Very tasteful. It has a lot of body."

Danzberger said, "It's very rich and soft, ah, real full-bodied. Um, there's definitely a different flavor to it, and you can't quite describe what it is. I hate to think what it is, but it's, um, very good."

"There's not much of it available," Cone said, "It's a unique product."

He added, "You have to have an army of Civet cats to pick this stuff an process it."

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I'll stick to tea in the morning. The idea of a cat shitting out coffee just doesn't do it for me

[fritz]

I've had to eat alot of crap in my life but not at $10 a cup.

[6ULDV8]

It's a rather nice coffee...

I prefer Blue Mountain myself, if I am splashing out on the coffee that is.

Starbucks had a limited 'black apron' amount of this & after being given a taste I purchased a lil' bit (it was sold in 1/4 pound bags).

As with most things, I am a snob... & this coffee, as good as it is, just doesn't keep well, I ended up mixing it up with some Blue Mountain & a touch of Kona on Xmas eve.

There are a few coffee 'beans' (as they are not realy beans rather seeds or kernals) that get collected in this way (pinched out of animal poop)...

Etheopians collect them from goat droppings & the coffee made is as prized as the Indo' one discussed above.

Ohh, the CATS in question...
Not like our domestic cats gone ferile...

[eefanincan]