I love coffee as much as anyone, but this I can't abide.......

[marmar]

GOLDEN TRIANGLE, Thailand (AP) — In the lush hills of northern Thailand, a herd of 20 elephants is excreting some of the world’s most expensive coffee.

Trumpeted as earthy in flavor and smooth on the palate, the exotic new brew is made from beans eaten by Thai elephants and plucked a day later from their dung. A gut reaction inside the elephant creates what its founder calls the coffee’s unique taste.

Stomach turning or oddly alluring, this is not just one of the world’s most unusual specialty coffees. At $1,100 per kilogram ($500 per pound), it’s also among the world’s priciest.

For now, only the wealthy or well-traveled have access to the cuppa, which is called Black Ivory Coffee. It was launched last month at a few luxury hotels in remote corners of the world — first in northern Thailand, then the Maldives and now Abu Dhabi – with the price tag of about $50 a serving. ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.salon.com/2012/12/07/weird_news_elephant_dung_coffee_fetches_50_a_cup/

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I am a coffee addict. Fortunately,

I can't afford this shit.

[JesterCS]

3. I see what you did there.... lol n/t

[lonestarnot]

19. Whew, I was worried there for a moment.

[virgogal]

2. I'm with you. Let the rich have their disgusting

$50.00 a serving coffee.

I'll stick with Dunkin Donuts.

[Major Nikon]

32. Primo shit

[Gregorian]

4. I've heard of that. Let me take this moment to plug my favorite coffee source-

And I thought I was paying a lot.

http://redbirdcoffee.com/redbirdespresso.html

[no_hypocrisy]

5. I wouldn't pay $500 a pound for Chock Full of Shit.

[ZombieHorde]

6. So funny. I wonder how the coffee affects the elephants. nt

[Ikonoklast]

27. Lately they've been seen growing Van Dykes, dressing all in black, and wearing berets and

sitting at a table in a dark corner trying to read "Being and Nothingness" by candlelight, while chain-smoking Turkish cigarettes.

[ZombieHorde]

31. Sounds fun. I want to hang out with those elephants. nt

[pinboy3niner]

37. Not as much fun as you'd think

Wait'll you hear them trying to play the bongos...

[pinboy3niner]

7. Finally, Kopi Luwak has some competition!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak

Are you ready for a refill?

[NashvilleLefty]

16. My favorite line from The Bucket List!

I already knew, but I saw the movie with my Aunt who didn't. Still, when Nicholson said "you're shitting me" and Freeman said "cats beat me to it".....

I laughed my ass off!

That had to be one of the funniest set-ups and pay-offs in movies, ever!

[Cleita]

8. Wow! What an entrepreneur! A flim flam man that can convince

rich people, to drink elephant shit. Well, I suppose when the elephants ate their cash crop, someone figured out a way to make lemonade from lemons, or in this case coffee out of elephant shit.

[Historic NY]

9. Craps too expensive i'll just buy whole coffee beans & shit them out.

[pinboy3niner]

10. Let us know how they taste when you're done

You might have a gold mine there!

[Historic NY]

11. I'm trying to take the middle elephant out of it.

[marmar]

12. ROFL.

[pinboy3niner]

15. And the middle civet!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak

And some say I'M frugal!

[Nevernose]

23. I was just wondering how much

An elephant would cost. Might be cheaper in the long run, especially if I could charge people $500 a pound for piles of elephant shit. Of course, I'd have to work it out with the neighbors, but they're probably to busy selling weed to high school kids to notice one little elephant in my yard.

[NickB79]

13. Approved by Austin Powers!

[Kaleva]

17. LOL!

[NickB79]

14. Do they sell it for my Keurig? nt

Little mini-cups of elephant-shit-coffee, mmm-mmmm.....

[pinboy3niner]

22. You're gonna need...

...a bigger Keurig.

[msanthrope]

35. Okay, I laughed until I had to go pee...nt

[Turbineguy]

18. Let the rich

eat shit!

[lonestarnot]

20. Or at least,

drink it!

[woo me with science]

21. Do you ever get the feeling

that they sit around in their corporate offices just howling at how far they can sucker us?

"Hey, do you think they'd pay extra for coffee shat by elephants, if we put together a REALLY slick campaign?"

[leftofcool]

24. Yep, think bottled water.

[woo me with science]

25. Great example.

[patrice]

26. "us"? at $500. @ pd. That's not any "us" that I know. Maybe it's something more like

"I'd rather drink coffee shat by elephants, than pay economically just taxes on that $500."

[longship]

28. There's always Civet Coffee.

Kopi Luwak coffee. Made from Civet poop. You see, these cats, these civets eat coffee beans, and then poop out the seeds... what we call the beans.

You make coffee from these pooped out coffee beans. Voila! The most exquisite of all coffees... Or, so they say.

[jsr]

40. Cat shit is lame. Dog shit coffee will be the next craze.

[bowens43]

29. I never considered coffee in my elephant shit....hmmm

[Wounded Bear]

30. As my avatar suggests, I'm a former Marine....

and I've drunk some pretty shitty coffee in my day.

I'll pass.

[pinboy3niner]

43. Same in the Army

And, while I wouldn't spring for the "primo" coffee from the dung of elephants or civets, I once had an experience of the bodily function kind with hot chocolate.

When I was in Vietnam, I brought my Infantry platoon back after a month out in the jungle to our firebase, FB Bastogne. We looked forward to securing the perimeter of the FB for up to a week as a brief respite from the field before we had to go out again for another month. And for me, it was going to be my 21st birthday.

But this time, the Army had other plans. We'd barely gotten back to FB Bastogne when we got new orders. A battery of 105 Howitzers was going to be airlifted out to the A Shau Valley to do a fire mission on enemy positions and they needed Infantry for security--and that was us.

The Hueys took us out to a surreal landscape. Some godforsaken hilltop in the A Shau that was pockmarked by bomb craters, and all that was left of the trees was truncated, blackened sticks, stripped of limbs and leaves. The Arty fired their mission, and we were anxious to get out of that spooky place. But the fog had come in, and we couldn't be extracted.

I think we ended up being socked in there for three days. Which was pretty hairy, because as soon as the Arty fired, everybody in the valley knew exactly where we were. And we spent each night expecting to be overrun. I spent my 21st birthday absolutely sure that I was going to die that night.

Ah, but the hot chocolate. My mom sent me Swiss Miss cocoa packets from home, and they were great because they required ony water, not milk. But, being socked in on that hilltop, we'd run out of all our water--even though each of us carried four canteens. And there was no way I was going to send a detail down the hill on what would be a suicidal mission to get water.

The only water on the hill was in the bomb craters--the red, muddy stuff, filled with charred, blackened tree splinters. The bomb craters that all the guys had been pissing in for three days.

So, for my 21st birthday celebration, I took the water from a bomb crater, boiled it EXTRA well, and made hot chocolate from a packet my mom sent me from home. Some may be put off, but to me it was my BEST and most memorable birthday. I was still alive...

[Major Nikon]

33. I prefer coffee flavored coffee

[agent46]

34. On the other hand

The Thai peasantry may very well be sticking it to the man. Stranger ironies have happened.

[Incitatus]

36. Um..

Couldn't they just soak the beans in a mix of acid and vegetation to simulate what happens in the elephant's digestive process?

[pinboy3niner]

38. What? And give up the authenshitcity?

[tavernier]

39. I guess that explains a lot about

the Donald.

[white_wolf]

41. And I thought Starbucks was expensive.

I'll never complain about paying for a peppermint mocha again, well at least not for a few days. I really should find a local coffee shop, it'd probably be better and cheaper.

[RobertEarl]

42. Republican coffee? No thanks

[NBachers]

44. Who certifies it? What's to prevent Thai shysters from counterfeiting phony pachyderm poop coffee?

[malaise]

45. This takes the expression that you can convince the rich to

buy shit to a new level. I'll stick with my blue mountain coffee