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A luwak, an indigenous, night-prowling civet cat, eats coffee beans then poops them out only semi-digested. These beans are then collected, cleaned, roasted and ground. The coffee produced is called Kopi Luwak and sells for about 5 times the price of normal coffee. You might say, as I said when I first heard this: "Who thinks this shit up?" (No pun intended, of course.) Here's the back story: The Dutch introduced coffee to their Indonesian colonies. It grows well here. The locals liked this new beverage so much they started drinking up the profits. The Dutch in response forbid workers to take any of the beans for themselves, but they didn't mind them collecting beans that had been eaten and egested by the luwak. And it became all the rage. They're still hawking it today. JoJo and I tasted some and didn't care for it much. It lacks the acid punch we like from a good cup of Java. |