Cookaholics Bulletin Board

So it being that time of the year (any month that ends in 'er') in the Philippines, I did a bit of Xmas shopping for some friends in the USA. It is hard to shop for them because to start with, I'm cheap, shipping is expensive, and customs frowns on stuff made out of wood. So I'm digging around the market today and I found some coffee. The palm civet sort, kinda pricey as coffee goes. The outfit that makes it sells it for $70 bucks per 50 grams or $870 for a kilo. Ouch ouch ouch. I managed to negotiate a bit better price from the local coffee roaster where I buy my daily caffeine fix.

The stuff looks legit, comes in a sealed can and is numbered. So I'm hoping it is the real thing. It is called Kapi Luwak when it comes from Indonesia. When from the Philippines: Coffee Alamid

Tatoosh,

If it tastes like weasel shit, it's authentic.

http://www.davebarry.com/misccol/decaf.htm

I described it to one Xmas recipient as Cat Poop Coffee (I resisted the urge to alliterate too extensively). It is perhaps a tad bit expensive to have them throw it in the trash because of it's unique processing qualities. I will bow to your wider experience and more developed palate in terms of denoting the appropriate flavors of weasel shit, Fuzzy.

Edit: And that was why I entitled this thread the Very Odd Xmas Gift

Tatoosh,

Well, I couldn't let there be some kind of gourmet coffee I hadn't tried. I'm not trying it twice, though.

Actually, I tried to get a friend of mine in Brazil into this. In central Brazil, there are these little chipmonk-sized monkeys who adore eating coffee beans. I figured he could collect their ... deposits ... and we could make a fortune. He didn't go for it, though. Something about army ants.

Steve,
Here's something for the tea lovers on your list -- Linky!

JesBelle, Brilliant! Panda Poop High Tea. I will have to amend my itinerary if and when I visit China.

Fuzzy, as long as the little chipmunks don't actually digest the bean, I think you might have missed your first (or is it second?) million dollars! I tried to talk a friend who has a coffee farm here into doing the palm civet thing, but he was very ho hum about it. I have yet to taste the stuff. I am intrigued but something akin to the character Jack Benny portrayed, far too cheap to spend that much on myself.

(Raising my hand)

Who said to themselves, " Now that the civet has taken a dump from eating coffee beans, lezzee what they taste like? ) The same with the Panda perv. The same guy who looked at cottage cheese, and said, "Oh yeah, let's eat that!?!"

And who did they con into tasting it the first time. I eat escargot, although I have never eaten a sea cucumber (it used to be a rite of passage for scuba divers: bring up a sea cucumber - gotta getcha one of those - and when you rise to the top, the pressure animal disembowels itself on you.)

But some things, I just don't get, and don't understand where the idea came from to begin with.

Who was the first guy to sniff a durian and say "Let me get my spoon!"? Who first said, "Well the leaves of this potato killed Bob, let's see if the root is okay."? And sausage -- "Let's take all the bits we can't get anyone to eat and stuff them into some intestines!"