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Civet Coffee - What You Think It Is ... It Is.


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From The Wall Street Journal (article by Amy Tan):

Vietnam is one of the world's largest producers of coffee, and Hanoi's cafes are well-versed brewers.

The drink to order is the celebrated coffee brand: Weasel, named after the way the coffee beans are processed. Local animals, actually civet cats rather than weasels, feed on coffee berries and expel them as they go about their daily business. The berry seeds -- coffee beans -- that pass through their systems undigested are then hand-collected and roasted.

"Apparently, chemical alterations within the (animal's) stomach create a unique flavor to the coffee," explains Mr. Nguyen. "Strong, but not bitter. And silky, almost chocolate-y." To me, it tasted a bit like buttered toast; a sweet nuttiness, creamy and mellow, mixed with an underlying burnt aroma. In Hanoi, a half-kilogram bag of Weasel brand coffee retails for about $50.
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I'd say the first person to taste this delicacy was even braver than the first person to eat an oyster.

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There's an outfit in Gainesville Florida that produces a coffee through its own (non-intestinal tract-based) process which it claims mimics ferret s**t coffee. Has anyone tried the stuff? It's way cheaper than the real thing. Like a factor of about 20x.

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There's an outfit in Gainesville Florida that produces a coffee through its own (non-intestinal tract-based) process which it claims mimics ferret s**t coffee. Has anyone tried the stuff? It's way cheaper than the real thing. Like a factor of about 20x.

I see no need to pay for this, as the coffee in my office is 100% free and tastes like 100% ferret s**t.

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This article pretty much covers the civet coffee phenomenon, which seems to enter the media cycle a few times a year out of sheer shock factor.

Key takeaway:

Kopi luwak is the foie gras of coffee, if foie gras tasted like Alpo dog food and cost roughly the same as caviar.

It has literally no redeeming qualities, and worse, it harmfully associates “quality coffee that costs extra” with “poop novelty” in the public mind.

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