I was fascinated to read last Friday in the Courier-Mail that the Herveys Range Heritage Tea Rooms in North Queensland have started selling $50 a cup Kopi Luwak coffee.
The coffee is expensive because the coffee beans are retrieved from the poo of the luwak, or common palm civet, Paradoxurus hermaphroditus. These cat-like creatures are apparently found in the jungles of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in Indonesia.
The luwak eat ripe coffee berries but the inner bean is not digested, and can be retrieved from the animal’s poo while the stomach enzymes add to the coffee’s flavor.
I gave up drinking coffee when I gave up smoking cigarettes about 18 years ago, so I will probably never know whether this poo brew is worth the effort and expense. But I thought it was a great potential example of conservation through sustainable use as promoted by Michael Archer at the AEF conference.
I was a bit keen to see more pictures of coffee cats in the wild and get a picture for this blog, so I emailed Richard Ness in the hope he might have some photographs from the many camera traps he has had set in Indonesian jungle. [Remember that magnificent picture of the Sumatran tiger.]
Anyway instead of a Kopi Luwak, he has sent me this magnificent picture of a Macan dahan or clouded leopard, Neofelis nebulosa.
While the coffee cats are apparently quite common, this species, like the Sumatran tiger, is threatened by hunting for body parts including for meat, fur, teeth as well as bones.
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Thanks Richard Ness for the great photograph of the clouded leopard. If you have a picture of an endangered animal that you would like to share with other readers of this blog, please send it to jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com .
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
I hear it’s the cat’s pyjamas
Crappucino anyone?
Sorry, crappuccino. One lump or two?
Is this some sort of metaphor for DPI’s relationship with Aila Keto?
Who the devil is Aila Keto? Assuming the feminine gender, does she come from the Aila Wight, or the Lake Aila Innisfree? And what’s a DPI? I refuse to learn these proliferating acronyms.
I am a true coffee lover. I have tried, what I thought to be, many types of coffee. I have not, however, ever heard of Kopi Luwak Coffee! $50 seems quite extreme to me and I have paid high prices to find the best flavor for me. Has anyone tried this coffee? Is it really that good?