LD's Coffee House: For The Strong in Spirit

Lady Dragonfly · Post by **Lady Dragonfly** » Tue Jul 10, 2007 8:56 pm

Attention all pub-n-slumber party-goers: wake up and smell the coffee.

May I interest you in this very special gourmet coffee? Welcome to your unforgetable coffee drinking experience! You can also enjoy the picture of the “fairly intact” original product...

Drink away.

Perhaps no coffee in the world is in such short supply, has such unique flavors and an, um, interesting background as Kopi Luwak. And no coffee even comes close in price: Kopi Luwak sells for $75 per quarter pound. Granted, that's substantially less than marijuana, but it's still unimaginably high for coffee.

Kopi (the Indonesian word for coffee) Luwak comes from the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi (formerly Celebes), which are part of the Indonesian Archepelago's 13,677 islands (only 6,000 of which are inhabited). But it's not strictly the exotic location that makes these beans worth their weight in silver. It's how they're "processed."

On these Indonesian islands, there's a small marsupial called the paradoxurus, a tree-dwelling animal that is part of the sibet family. Long regarded by the natives as pests, they climb among the coffee trees eating only the ripest, reddest coffee cherries. Who knows who first thought of it, or how or why, but what these animals eat they must also digest and eventually excrete.

Some brazen or desparate -- or simply lazy -- local gathered the beans, which come through the digestion process fairly intact, still wrapped in layers of the cherries' mucilage. The enzymes in the animals' stomachs, though, appear to add something unique to the coffee's flavor through fermentation.

Curiously, Kopi Luwak isn't the only "specialty" food that begins this way. Argan is an acacia-like tree that grows in Morocco and Mexico which, through its olive-like fruit, yields argan oil. In Morocco, the Berbers encourage goats to climb the trees to eat the fruit. They later gather the goats' excrement and remove the pits, which they grind for oil to be used in massage, in cooking and as an aphrodisiac.

What started as, presumably, a way for the natives to get coffee without climbing the trees has since evolved into the world's priciest specialty coffee. Japan buys the bulk of Kopi Luwak, but M.P. Mountanos (800-229-1611), the first in the United States to bring in this exotic bean, recently imported 110 pounds after a seven year search for a reliable and stable supplier. "It's the rarest beverage in the world," Mark Mountanos says, estimating a total annual crop of less than 500 pounds.

Kopi Luwak

AmpaSand · Post by **AmpaSand** » Tue Jul 10, 2007 11:20 pm

I can see why the world will pay $600 a kilo for digested beans, it's the same reason that paris hilton is a celebrity.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:06 am

Ah yes, I heard about this product a couple of years back. A friend of ours was in Indonesia, and actually sampled some of this "epicurean brew." He described the flavour as "musky and distinct."

Eehhhh... Not exactly the most ringing endorsement I've ever heard. I'll stick with fairly traded Sumatra, thanks

Faberge · Post by **Faberge** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:56 am

*Sips some coffee.*

Well, not bad I suppose.

Beldin · Post by **Beldin** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 2:05 am

Lady Dragonfly wrote: "It's the rarest beverage in the world,"

...and we can only HOPE that it STAYS that way...

**shudders**

What's next ? "Goat Piss Beer" ??? **bangs head on desk**

No worries, "they" will think of something....

Beldin

Lady Dragonfly · Post by **Lady Dragonfly** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 4:53 pm

So, I gather you like this monkey poo coffee?

A cup of kopi luwak is recommended after Sautéed Snails with Frog Legs.

Or try it after this Cambodian dinner:

Khmer sour soup (I wonder...)
Grilled tarantulas (yum?)
Roasted cockroaches (double yum?)

And don't miss this stuff at the Explorer's Club Annual dinner at the Waldarf-Astoria in New York:

* Sweet and sour bovine penis with asian vegetables (sweet... and... sour... :laugh: )
* Teriyaki-glazed cockroaches and scorpions on a stick
* Roasted alligator, spiced shining and smiling
* Oven roasted North-American beaver, nutria and ostrich egg
* Honey-glazed tarantula
* Pork uterus, mandago style (so many styles, so little time…)
* Rattlesnake

103rd Explorer’s Club Annual Dinner 2007 | Eric Cheng’s Journal

Bon appétit!

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 4:59 pm

* Sweet and sour bovine penis with asian vegetables

Funny... I'd have thought they'd dress it in a more...uhm.. ocean-like flavour..

Lady Dragonfly · Post by **Lady Dragonfly** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 5:06 pm

You prefer ocean-like flavored... snacks? :laugh:

Weasel · Post by **Weasel** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 5:26 pm

Lady Dragonfly wrote: * Roasted alligator, spiced shining and smiling

Bon appétit!

Fried gator is not bad, kind of a mix between chicken and pork.

Gatorkabob IIRC is the name.

AmpaSand · Post by **AmpaSand** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 5:28 pm

I can only conclude that these foods are for mutants ant have no taste buds (hump can't tell the diffence between snake and chicken) and no gag reflex

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 5:56 pm

Lady Dragonfly wrote:You prefer ocean-like flavored... snacks? :laugh:

Well, I wasn't speaking about me personally, but I s'pose I can say that raw oysters on the half shell do number amongst my favourite foods

Beldin · Post by **Beldin** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 1:41 am

Weasel wrote:
Fried gator is not bad, kind of a mix between chicken and pork.

..tastes great !

I wonder why McD or da King don't offer "Gator Burgers"...

Faberge · Post by **Faberge** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 2:56 am

I do have to admit I did make my previous comment without being aware of the context of this thread. I honestly just though this was a coffee house.

*Thus sips more coffee.*

But, no, I wouldn't have troubles tasting this new brand of coffee. After all it doesn't feel much different from your avarage breakfast eggs really. And or how majority of things we call food is made.

How about bread? Bread - How It's Made !! Video

Well, it is all neat and nice I think, but I'm sure they should have shown little more of the happy workers baking bread. And so forth.

Lady Dragonfly · Post by **Lady Dragonfly** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 4:54 pm

Faberge wrote:I do have to admit I did make my previous comment without being aware of the context of this thread. I honestly just though this was a coffee house.

*Thus sips more coffee.*

This is a coffee house. With a twist.

You did not make any mistake.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 5:27 pm

Lady Dragonfly wrote:This is a coffee house. With a twist. You did not make any mistake.

But do have any choice in the variety of brew? I'd prefer not to drink Kopi Luwak....

Lady Dragonfly · Post by **Lady Dragonfly** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 5:47 pm

dragon wench wrote:But do have any choice in the variety of brew? I'd prefer not to drink Kopi Luwak....

You don't like musky scented stuff?

Well, there are some patriotic beverages:

Iceland:
"Brennivín"is a national drink, a nasty schnapps made from potatoes and flavoured with caraway. It is also called "Black Death", which explains a lot. Many Icelanders never touch it, and a majority of the ones who drink it only do so when feeling patriotic, such as when attending Þorrablót or when trying to impress foreign visitors.