Tuesday, September 10, 2002 EDMONTON (CP) - If you have to ask how much coffee culled from cat feces costs, chances are you can't afford it. If, on the other hand, you have a pantry full of the stuff, it may be a sure sign that you make way too much money.

Starting Wednesday, a swank Edmonton grocery store called Urban Fare is testing out which side most of its customers come down on when it starts selling Kopi Luwak, billed as one of the rarest beverages in the world.

"We're not sure, really," says store manager Dawn Marie Schulz. "But if the square watermelons (from Japan) that we got in were any indication, then it will be popular."

Only 500 pounds of Kopi Luwak beans are produced annually. They sell for $600 a pound, and the store plans to carry just four pounds.

The method of production explains their rarity. On three Indonesian islands, a tree-dwelling cat called a luwak (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) makes a pest of itself by climbing the local coffee trees.

It eats the beans, but doesn't digest them particularly well - many are passed in bowel movements, largely unscathed, onto the jungle floor beneath.

"The enzymes in the animals' stomachs, though, appear to add something unique to the coffee's flavor through fermentation," says the food Web site Sally's Place.

Schulz isn't sure how people will take to it.

"But I was talking to some customers in today who said they were coming back tomorrow to try it."

(Edmonton

-- Anonymous, September 11, 2002