"palm civet" news and stories

A recent article on Damn Interesting reminded me of something I'd somehow managed to forget about: civet coffee. The animal you see here is a civet and Civet coffee or Kopi Luwak is made from coffee beans that these little guys eat and excrete. Yep, that's civet poo in your brew. Well, not really. It's supposedly washed before roasting.

And it ain't cheap, either. You can find it at Edible.com for about $20 per ounce. According to Edible, civet coffee has "a rich chocolate like flavour and no aftertaste." Also, it the beans get partially fermented as they pass through the digestive systems of these little Sumatran tree shrews, lending the cup an even more distinctive flavor.

According to DI, the majority of the 500 pounds of Kopi Luwak harvested each year is sold in Japan.

USA Today also reported on civet coffee a few years back in an articled entitled "Civet coffee: good to the last dropping." I wish I'd thought of that one.