A 2002 article from FHM, a British men’s lifestyle monthly publishing from 1985 to 20016.
KOPI HAPPENS
Gourmet coffee straight from the gut.
BY AL RIDENOUR
While we’re often accused of “wasting time” when poking through steaming piles of animal dung, workers in Sumatran coffee plantation get away with it because they know their shit.
They’re looking for beans to be sold as kopi luwak, a coffee highly prized by for its interestingly “musky” flavor and the alluring novelty of swilling something steeped in the colon of the palm civet.
This foraging catlike pest, known locally as a “luwak,” is believed to show exceptionally good taste in raiding coffee (“kopi“) plantations. Emerging at night to feast on the outer pulp of coffee “cherries,” it’s said to select only the finest fruits, excreting the choice inner nuggets intact after infusing them with delicious stomach enzymes.
Since the luwak typically does his duty in the same spot on the ground, bean gatherers needn’t search far, much less haul out those cumbersome ladders — leaving everyone more time to relax and have a good laugh at mankind’s perversity.
$75/4 oz., www.ravensbrew.com.