DRUDGE

BEST COFFEE MADE FROM MONKEY POO; CRAPPUCCINO DAILY STAR Wed Nov 21 2001 10:22:30 ET Coffee drinkers are going bananas over a brew that's made of MONKEY DUNG.

Brits are flooding exclusive US stockists with orders for the brew, called Kopi Luwak, made from berries that have passed through the digestive system of Indonesian monkeys. Unlucky coffee plantation staff have to search through the dung to gather the bizarre "harvest" of coffee berries, which are said to emerge virtually intact.

Experts reckon the monkey business gives the drink a unique "earthy" taste, which has made it the most expensive and sought-after coffee in the world.

It is in such short supply - just 500 lb of it is harvested a year - that it is virtually impossible to get hold of in Britain and has only limited availability in the States and Japan.

Experts say the brew first came to light hundreds of years ago, when explorers sampled it on the Indonesian isles of Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi.

The monkey - known as the Palm Toddy Cat - lives on a diet of alcoholic tree sap and coffee berries.

US-based food and drink critic Chris Rubin said:

"Whether it's because the intestinal juices give some special flavour or because it eats only perfectly ripe berries, the Toddy Cat's droppings produce what many say is the world's finest coffee."

Some exclusive US outlets sell Kopi Luwak for around a FIVER a cup.

US Coffee supplier Mark Mountanos has snapped up 110 lb of the beans.

He said: "We've had interest from all over the world because it is very hard to get hold of."

US coffee shop owner Richard Karno ordered a pound from Mark's firm - but only after he convinced him it wasn't a joke.

He said: "It's the best coffee I've ever tasted. It smells musty, but it roasts up real nice."

END

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2001

Answers

Wonder if they wash them first? Figures the Brit's would be sucking it up...

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2001

How the hell did they come up with this idea?

Must have been some desperately lonely bored person.

Oh, wait, isn't she busy annoying people on the internet? LOL

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2001

'Twould be a valid explanation, though, when someone remarks that your coffee tastes like $hit. :-)

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2001

Gee, I have other choices here on the farm. How about goat berries or cow pies or road apples to go with your monkey-poo coffee??

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2001

LOL beckie!

Such a smorgasbord!

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2001

bumping to see if OG knows what those things are :)

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

Blah! Another reason to switch to herbal tea, which just has insect doo-doo on it.

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

Because I didn't know anything about American foods and brand names, I bought issues of Consumer Reports almost as soon as I came to this country. One of the first things I remember reading was a report on hot dogs. It said that a certain percentage of "insect parts," rodent hair and droppings and the like was permitted in hot dogs and same were described in fascinating detail. I have not eaten a hot dog since. Hence, you can well imagine that I would not be first in line to buy this coffee harvested from simian feces. Helen might be interested if the beans passed through chickens. . .

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

notice how she cleverly ignores it, and then brings someone else into it...

LOL

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

:) :) :) :) :)

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

You know Barefoot, I don't think she knows and is trying to bluff us :)

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

I won the heart of my wife (ex) by telling her that if she stuck with me, she'd be wearing road apples as big as diamonds.

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

(ex), huh?

I take it you came thru on that pledge, then?

LOL

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

Speaking of coffee, I went shopping today at a chain I go to, big in the DC area, Sutton Place. They have their characteristic red bags, of all kinds of coffee, with the prices ranging from about 8.99 to 11.99 for a 12 oz. bag. However, I encountered such a bag of Jamaican blue mountain coffee, and the price was 49.99. I am not making this up. I checked, and it was no mistake. I contented myself with a couple of bags of French roast, my standby, on sale for 6.99 per.

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

I didn't know that they had monkeys in Jamaica, ;>)

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

Diane:

You're absolutely right. I don't know where they get off, charging that price without bean-eating monkeys being involved.

Actually, I've had some of that blue mountain coffee. It's very good, but not that good.

This whole business reminds me of some of the "foodies" that I've read about. Back when Wall Street was going crazy, a lot of young people working there had more money than they knew what to do with. So they spent tons of money going to "in" restaurants featuring things like pizza topped with tiny pumpkins grown in Borneo, that sort of thing.

If they had had any sense, they would have used that money to become financially independent, or close to it, for the rest of their lives.

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

is this the coffee you just mentioned?

I happened to see a catalog for Tortuga Rum Company in the mail tonight. And that coffee was on it. LOL

If you hadn't mentioned it I would have forgotten the URL, as I wanted to look at it since they frown on us reading other peoples catalogs.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

hmmm, who could I send this too...

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

Link

Jamaica; Blue Mountain, High Mountain

Jamaican coffee is a story of extremes: The lowland coffees of Jamaica are so ordinary that they are seldom sold in the United States except as fillers for cheap blends. On the other hand, the highland coffees traditionally rank among the world's most distinguished, and Jamaican Blue Mountain, however one defines that name, is the world's most celebrated, most expensive, and most controversial coffee.

Some years ago it was not entirely clear whether any high-quality coffee from the Blue Mountain district of Jamaica was entitled to be marketed as Jamaican Blue Mountain, or whether the name properly applies only to coffees grown on a single plantation, the Wallensford Estate. Today, responsible roasters designate estate-produced coffees grown at over 3,000 feet in the Blue Mountain district of Jamaica as authentic Blue Mountain. Most will be either Wallensford (best) or Silver Hill Estate Mountain. If you want to know where a store's Blue Mountain comes from, you can always ask. Jamaican High Mountain usually describes a somewhat lesser coffee than Blue Mountain, grown at lower altitudes in other parts of the island.

The Jamaican situation has been complicated by the many people who, in one way or another, are attempting to profit from the extraordinary prices demanded for Blue Mountain. In particular, other plantation owners in the high mountains of Jamaica are trying to produce a coffee that will ride on the coattails of the original into the pocketbooks and onto the palates of the Americans and Japanese. These entrepreneurs appear honest and well meaning; less admirable, however, are the American roasters who market a "Blue Mountain Style" coffee that has the taste characteristics of Blue Mountain, but may not contain a single bean of actual Blue Mountain.

Today it appears that either Wallensford Blue Mountain has greatly fallen off in quality, or we are drinking something else in a Wallensford Blue Mountain barrel. The original Wallensford coffee from fifteen years ago was an understated masterpiece, a quintessentially classic coffee with enough of everything: rich flavor and aroma, full body and moderate acidity in perfect, subtle balance. The Blue Mountain coffees shipped today retain the body and richness, but lack the acidity; they are smooth, well-bodied, moderately rich coffees deserving to be drunk, but not to be carried on about.

And even if the real thing appeared in the stores tomorrow, would it be worth the prices currently being asked? I would say probably not. Blue Mountain was a great coffee, and some of it may still be great, but at this point it appears to represent still another minor chapter in the long history of vanity, snobbery, and the sacrifice of substance to pretense.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

Link

“More nonsense.” He took a sip of his tea. “There are of course the coffee picking monkeys of Shrevenoot.”

I laughed. “Wait - so there are actually monkeys trained to pick coffee beans?”

“Of course not. They are not trained. It is a natural phenomenon. They pick the fruit off the tree and eat. That is how you get Monkey Coffee. Surely you have heard?”

Actually, I had read about this stuff. Monkey Coffee was something that had existed in the 19th Century, supposedly the best coffee in the world.

“So there really is such a thing?” I asked.

“It is a well known fact. I have read it is a delicacy in some countries.”

“Yes, yes. I’ve read that too. They say it is because the monkeys will pick only the best, the ripest berries, right?”

“So some say. Others claim it is the chemical reaction within the bowels.”

“Bowels?”

“Yes. The monkeys eat the beans and then pass it through their digestive system. That is the monkey coffee.”

“You mean it’s monkey, uh, feces?”

“As I have said, nobody drinks it here. They are unclean animals.” He wrinkled his nose. “But it was a terrible problem in Shrevenoot. The monkeys ate all the best beans.”

I was never quite sure whether to believe all this until much later, back in the U.S., when I discovered that Monkey Coffee had recently became part of the gourmet coffee roster. It does not come out of either a monkey or India, but is the product of a small Indonesian creature called the Palm Toddy Cat , a nocturnal tree-lover who lives on the naturally alcoholic tree sap used to make palm toddy (wine) and fresh coffee berries. Whether it's because the animal's intestinal juices impart some special flavor (perhaps because of its alcoholic diet) or merely because it eats only perfectly ripe berries, the Toddy Cat’s droppings, cleaned, produce what many say is the world's finest coffee. Japan buys most of the stuff nowadays, but the U.S. firm of M.P. Mountanos (800-229-1611) also sells it under the name Kopi Luwak at about $300 a pound, making it the world's most expensive cup of Joe. Another firm called Raven's Brew Coffee (ravencup@ptialaska.net or 800-91-RAVEN) sells it by the quarter pound for $75 and , in that grand American tradition, throws in a free T-shirt showing the beast hard at work with a cup under its ass and the caption "Good to the Last Dropping."

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

The Rarest Coffee in The World (And the Most Expensive)

Kopi Luwak

Coffee grows in several countries in the world and some particular varieties are noted for their excellence or their fine reputation. Often, this is based on rarity and incredibly fine flavor. Several coffees including Jamaican Blue Mountain, Kona, and Tanzanian Peaberry, command a premium price due to quality and availability. These are all exceptional coffees.

However, there is one coffee that beats them all in uniqueness of flavor, rarity and strangeness of processing. This coffee, known as Kopi Luwak, is so rare that there is perhaps only as little as 500 Lbs of it available per year. The Uniqueness is reflected in the price and no other coffee even comes close. Kopi Luwak sells for $75 per quarter pound. This seems an unimaginably high price for a quarter pound of coffee but it’s the special "Processing" that makes it so incredibly rare.

Kopi Luwak comes from the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi which are part of the Indonesian Archipelago’s island chain. On these Indonesian islands, there's a small marsupial called the Paradoxurus. This marsupial is a tree-dwelling animal belonging to the Sibet family. Once regarded by the Indonesians as pests because they climb into the coffee trees and eat only the ripest, reddest coffee cherries. What these animals eat they must also digest and eventually excrete. Some brazen local gathered the beans, which come through the digestion process fairly intact, still wrapped in layers of the cherries' mucilage. The enzymes in the animals' stomachs, though, appear to add something unique to the coffee's flavor through fermentation. Yes the most expensive…the rarest coffee in the world is partially pre-digested and excreted by the Paradoxurus.

What began as, presumably, a way for the natives to get coffee without climbing the trees has evolved into the world's priciest specialty coffee. How does it taste? It's really good, heavy with a caramel taste, heavy body. It smells musty and jungle-like green, but it roasts up real nice. It's a most complex coffee with unusual flavor due to the natural fermentation the coffee beans undergo in the paradoxurus' digestive system. The stomach acids and enzymes are very different from fermenting beans in water. The flavor is earthy with a musty tone that’s heavy bodied. It's almost syrupy with a unique aroma. It's an unbelievable taste in your mouth: richness, body, earthiness, smooth.

Is Kopi Luwak worth it’s price? Those who have been fortunate enough to try it at a cupping are delighted with it’s intriguing chocolaty, syrupy taste and would enjoy it whenever it is available. By the cup, it costs no more than a fancy latte at around $5.00 per cup, when you can find it. Well worth a try…even if only for the novelty…until your taste buds tell you how delightful it truly is.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

Hey Barefoot,

OG sure is a master of avoiding things isn't she :)

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

I have more experience than the rest of you novices, especially when it comes to avoiding crap.

By the way, the animal referred to is sometimes known as a civet cat. Some locales permit ownership of same. You could get one, feed it coffee beans and make your own crappy coffee.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

Beckie, you're right. I sense bobbing and weaving here. I mean, talk about the big fat hint I gave her, and we still don't know if she GI.

However, in her defense, I found the posting on Blue Mountain coffee fascinating.

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

good to the last dropping!

LOL

Jay Leno mentioned it in his monologue last night, btw.

[I think OG used to try and sell road apples to passersby when she was a kid. shortage of lemonade in those days, dontchaknow...]

tee hee

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001

You're not mixing apples and oranges, are you? Want some smart pills?

-- Anonymous, November 24, 2001