Chiang Saen - For true gourmet nothing is too outlandish: In Thailand, you can enjoy your coffee almost predigested. Beans of the brand "Black Ivory Coffee» all time already hiked by an elephant.
In the digestive tract of elephants he should get its unique flavor. Converted 34 euros paid for the portion of coffee Nuttall.
25 elephants in Chiang Saen eat the fruits and excrete the coffee beans from undigested says the Canadian company founder Blake Dinkin the news agency dpa. Your digestive enzymes break up proteins and thus create a special flavor, he says. This type of coffee production is not new: In Indonesia and Vietnam coffee is produced from the dung of civet cats. The "Kopi Luwak" is appreciated by coffee lovers around the world.
Only with a single gastric organisms have the necessary enzymes to digest the coffee fruit, so that the bitter substances can be reduced. Also, the food can not be chewed strong. This will damage the beans and makes it harder to clean them and roast. Coffee fruits require about 24 hours to get from one end of an elephant on the other hand, says Dinkin. This is an advantage: The slow fermentation in the gut of elephants wearing the "flowery" taste at.
Elephants on the coffee itself had no effect. Caffeine in the bean is only released when the coffee is cooked. Thailand is well-suited for the project, says Dinkin. In the Southeast Asian country coffee is grown, and there are several thousand domesticated elephants. Many were no longer needed when Thailand banned the felling of timber in the 1990s.
Some of these elephants at the sanctuary of the process now, "Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation» Coffee for Dinkin. He paid the mahouts (elephant leaders) converted about 380 euros a month for the "services" of their elephants and another two euros per kilogram of manure derived from the coffee beans.
"This is not a brand that will be sold at Starbucks," says Dinkin. "It is a unique coffee, and I do not that it ends in cheap cafes, or as a kind of joke articles". The 42-year-old has invested in recent years, more than 230,000 euros in the project. This year he would like to produce about 70 kilograms of coffee. In the coming years, the amount will increase to up to 300 kilograms per year. € 34 cost 35 grams "Black Ivory" in the handful of luxury hotels, where the coffee is currently available.
The high price of "Black Ivory Coffee» justifies Dinkin at cost: For a kilo of coffee his company takes 30 kilograms of coffee beans. In the digestive process, some may be lost. Moreover, the production is labor intensive because the beans are picked by hand from the elephant dung. There are also other risks Dinkin explains: "When they go swimming and it can be a little plop, then I lose the whole load.
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