Jackal
12-11-2012, 08:22 PM
Black Ivory Coffee anyone?
http://cmsimg.stevenspointjournal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=U0&Date=20121208&Category=GPG0504&ArtNo=312080123&Ref=V1&MaxW=300&Border=0&Coffee-from-an-elephant-s-gut-fills-50-cup
http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/325329/elephant-processed-coffee-offers-something-to-sniff
Here's a part of it.
Mr Dinkin, 42, has invested the past decade and about US$300,000 (9 million baht) into turning coffee beans into black gold, or at least making them profitable enough to make the money back.
His journey started in 2002 in Ethiopia, where Mr Dinkin attempted to convince civet farmers to use their livestock to process coffee beans.
Civets, indigenous to both Africa and Asia, have been raised for centuries in Ethiopia to produce civetone, a perfume ingredient.
In Indonesia, the civet has been used more recently to create a high-quality coffee made from coffee beans that the mammal has ingested.
But trouble struck when human-to-civet contact in China, where the animals are bred for the table, was blamed for the outbreak of the SARS epidemic of 2003.
The backlash was ''a disaster'' for his civet-coffee venture in Ethiopia, Mr Dinkin said. ''That's when I realised I needed an animal that was going to be considered clean, and I decided on the elephant. It's also herbivorous, majestic and the symbol of conservation.''
Only single-stomached animals have the right enzymes to break down the proteins of the ripe coffee cherry and reduce its bitter flavour, which rules out cud-chewing, multi-stomached animals like cows.
In theory, humans could also be used, but we tend to chew our food too much, damaging the coffee beans and making them harder to clean and roast, aside from other marketing considerations.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/media/content/20121209/451533.jpg
A mahout picks coffee beans out of elephant dung as part of the process to make Black Ivory Coffee, a coffee brewed from beans that have been through an elephant's intestinal system, at an elephant camp in Chiang Rai province. (EPA Photo)
The elephant has the added advantage that it takes 24 hours to pass food through its lower intestines, in a natural fermentation process that imparts the ''floral'' aroma to Black Ivory Coffee, Mr Dinkin said.
Blood tests on bean-munching elephants have shown no ill effect, as the fruit does not release its caffeine until turned into coffee.
http://cmsimg.stevenspointjournal.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=U0&Date=20121208&Category=GPG0504&ArtNo=312080123&Ref=V1&MaxW=300&Border=0&Coffee-from-an-elephant-s-gut-fills-50-cup
http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/325329/elephant-processed-coffee-offers-something-to-sniff
Here's a part of it.
Mr Dinkin, 42, has invested the past decade and about US$300,000 (9 million baht) into turning coffee beans into black gold, or at least making them profitable enough to make the money back.
His journey started in 2002 in Ethiopia, where Mr Dinkin attempted to convince civet farmers to use their livestock to process coffee beans.
Civets, indigenous to both Africa and Asia, have been raised for centuries in Ethiopia to produce civetone, a perfume ingredient.
In Indonesia, the civet has been used more recently to create a high-quality coffee made from coffee beans that the mammal has ingested.
But trouble struck when human-to-civet contact in China, where the animals are bred for the table, was blamed for the outbreak of the SARS epidemic of 2003.
The backlash was ''a disaster'' for his civet-coffee venture in Ethiopia, Mr Dinkin said. ''That's when I realised I needed an animal that was going to be considered clean, and I decided on the elephant. It's also herbivorous, majestic and the symbol of conservation.''
Only single-stomached animals have the right enzymes to break down the proteins of the ripe coffee cherry and reduce its bitter flavour, which rules out cud-chewing, multi-stomached animals like cows.
In theory, humans could also be used, but we tend to chew our food too much, damaging the coffee beans and making them harder to clean and roast, aside from other marketing considerations.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/media/content/20121209/451533.jpg
A mahout picks coffee beans out of elephant dung as part of the process to make Black Ivory Coffee, a coffee brewed from beans that have been through an elephant's intestinal system, at an elephant camp in Chiang Rai province. (EPA Photo)
The elephant has the added advantage that it takes 24 hours to pass food through its lower intestines, in a natural fermentation process that imparts the ''floral'' aroma to Black Ivory Coffee, Mr Dinkin said.
Blood tests on bean-munching elephants have shown no ill effect, as the fruit does not release its caffeine until turned into coffee.