At the risk of potentially turning this space into rantings about coffee instead of rantings about music (?), I'm dipping into the coffee story well for the 2nd week in a row. Because yesterday I had the best coffee in the world: Poop coffee.
Call me crazy, but coffee that's been through an animal, a cat-monkey animal called a Paradoxurus, is the best I've ever tasted. I almost always take cream & sugar in my coffee, but this poop coffee didn't need any. Smooth, nutty, silky. Good to the last drop.
The coffee is actually called Kopi Luwak. Calling it Kopi Luwak probably gets more first-time customers than calling it poop coffee. It's expensive as hell. 60 bucks a cup. A cup! Three dudes from work and I went to our new favorite coffee house, Funnel Mill, because occasionally Funnel Mill sells Kopi Luwak at half-price, and yesterday was our lucky day. It was a brothers-in-arms sorta effort because we figured nobody should drink poop coffee by themselves.
Here's what the Funnel Mill site says about Kopi Luwak:
Kopi Luwak coffee comes from the Indonesian island of Sumatra, an area well-known for its excellent coffee. Also native to the area is a small civet- like animal called a Paradoxurus. That's the scientific name, but the locals called them Luwaks. These little mammals live in the trees and one of their favorite foods is the red, ripe coffee cherry. They eat the cherries, bean and all. While the beans are in the Luwak's stomach, they undergo chemical treatments and fermentations. The beans finish the journey through the digestive system, exit. The still-intact beans are collected from the forest floor, and are cleaned, then roasted and ground just like any other coffee.
Our group was in agreement that Kopi Luwak is one of the best coffees we'd ever tasted. Was it worth 30 bucks? Probably not. But the fact that this coffee is rare because it's been through a cat-monkey made the experience worth every penny. The owner of Funnel Mill even brought a pad that has the names of the individuals who've dared to try Kopi Luwak, and he asked us to add our names to the list. After I was the last of us to sign, the owner told us he'd be sending us personalized Kopi Luwak mugs with our number on it. I'm lucky 13.
As we were settling the bill, the woman behind the register told us that because of global warming, it's getting harder and harder to find the Paradoxurus and their magical coffee-enhancing intestines, so Funnel Mill doesn't get very many Kopi Luwak beans anymore. So better run out to your local coffee shop and ask for some poop coffee! Pronto!
