Scan Reveals If Your Civet Poo Coffee Really Comes From Civet Poo
Asian Palm Civet Eating Coffee Berries Leendertz on Wikimedia Commons Because that's what you want, right? When you pay $150 to $230 for a pound of exotic coffee, you want to know it's the real deal. Now, a team of chemists say they've developed a way to verify that beans labeled as "civet coffee" are authentic. What is civet coffee and what makes it so expensive? Normally, coffee farmers and processors pick the berries from their coffee trees, remove the fruits' flesh from their seeds, ferment the seeds, and then wash, dry and roast the seeds. For civet coffee, a cute Southeast Asian forest creature called the Asian palm civet helps out with some of these steps. Civets selectively eat the best ripe coffee berries, and their digestive tracts strip the fruit from the beans. The civets then excrete the beans, which civet coffee farmers gather, wash, ferment and roast. Regular...