Things I Just Don't Get.

Kopi Luwak, also known as Civet Coffee.  It is said to be the world's most expensive beverage.  From the Wikipedia article:

Kopi luwak (Indonesian pronunciation: [ˈkopi ˈlu.aʔ]), or civet coffee refers to the beans of coffee berries once they have been eaten and excreted by the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) and other civets.[1] The name is also used for marketing brewed coffee made from those beans.

Get that? Some cat like animal eats the beans, poops them out, then some enterprising person, who most likely gets paid a pittance, gathers them up so some rich dude may then sit down and have a drink of the very, very expensive coffee.

Me, I don't even drink normal coffee. To me, coffee tastes like crap even without being pre-excreted.  I've been told coffee is an acquired taste, which means it tastes like garbage, but you get used to it.  I cannot be bothered to force feed myself stuff that tastes bad until I like it, just so I can then pay Starbucks five bucks for a double decaf mocha chino with whipped cream and caramel swirl and chocolate sprinkles, much less... this stuff.

So this stuff must taste wonderful for people to be willing to fork out so much cash for it whilst ignoring the source, right?  Some say yes, others, not so much.

A coffee professional cited in the SCAA article was able to compare the same beans with and without the kopi luwak process using a rigorous coffee cupping evaluation. He concluded: "it was apparent that Luwak coffee sold for the story, not superior quality...Using the SCAA cupping scale, the Luwak scored two points below the lowest of the other three coffees. It would appear that the Luwak processing (Now there's a euphemism if I ever heard one) diminishes good acidity and flavor and adds smoothness to the body, which is what many people seem to note as a positive to the coffee.”

Hold on there:  doesn't saying "Luwak coffee sold for the story, not superior quality" mean that it is sold not despite the fact that it is made from excrement but because it is made from excrement? Are people really that stupid?  Here's another reviewer weighing in.

Tim Carman, food writer for the Washington Post reviewed kopi luwak available in the US and concluded "It tasted just like...Folgers. Stale. Lifeless. Petrified dinosaur droppings steeped in bathtub water. I couldn’t finish it."

So this reviewer has descended from the mountaintop to let us all know that a drink made from poop tastes like sh-t.   I hope they paid him extra for that review.


People forking out top dollar for the privilege of saying: "I drink poop."  I just don't get it.