A new coffee trend, in Thailand at least, is a cup of Joe that has literally been pooped out by elephants.
CNN Go reports that Thailand's Anantara hotels creates their own elephant poo coffee from the elephant camps behind its luxurious Golden Triangle resort in Chiang Rai.
Civet poo coffee, an expensive Indonesian delicacy, perhaps paved the way to the new elephant poo coffee idea. Civets are cat like creatures who eat the coffee cherries and does not digest them. The animals then pass the beans through its digestive tract and humans pick them out creating the dlelicacy. CNN reported that the digestive process of the civet is what gives the coffee its smooth taste and that the natural enzymes in the civet's stomach make the coffee less acidic.
CNN Go reported Anantara resorts saying in a statement about the elephant poo coffee, "Research indicates that during digestion, the enzymes of the elephant break down coffee protein. Since protein is one of the main factors responsible for bitterness in coffee, less protein means almost no bitterness."
The coffe is extremely expensive. It's called Black Ivory and costs $1,100 per cup which comes out to a whopping $50 per cup, reported CNN Go. It is one of the most expensive cups of coffee in the world.
Civet coffee in comparison retails for approximately $500-600 per kilo or US$30 a cup, CNN Go reported.
CNN Go reported, "Anantara says the process begins by selecting top Thai Arabica cherries -- the beans are inside -- that have been picked at an altitude of 1,500 meters. The elephants willingly eat them, before they're digested and then excreted, as nature dictates."
Then the beans are hand picked by elephant trainers and their wives and dried. The coffee is then refined at Anantara's Golden Triangle elephant camp.
Black Ivory coffee is currently only available at Anantara resorts-four in the Maldives and the Golden Triangle in Thailand.
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