Is Elephant Dung Coffee Really Delicious? Introduction to the Origin of Elephant Dung Coffee - How Much Does a Cup Cost?

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The Fascinating World of Exotic Coffees

Many people are familiar with coffee, but do you know about civet coffee and elephant dung coffee? What makes them so special, and how do their flavors differ?

Understanding Civet Coffee

Civet coffee refers to raw coffee beans that pass through the civet's digestive system after the animal consumes fresh coffee beans and digests the fruit pulp and skin. Freshly picked coffee beans consist of exocarp, mesocarp, endocarp, silver skin (seed coat), and endosperm from outside to inside. Since the endocarp is extremely hard, civets can only digest the outer parts, including the exocarp and pulp. The coffee we drink daily is processed using only the innermost endosperm. The processing of raw coffee beans includes depulping, demucilage, dehydration and drying, and hulling. In this process, the civet serves the function of depulping and demucilage. The silver skin also separates from the endosperm during roasting due to heat and does not enter the final coffee solution.

Civet coffee is not merely utilizing the civet's depulping and demucilage functions. Civets naturally love to eat coffee beans and select coffee fruits with fully ripe red skins (which aligns with the requirement for high-quality coffee to use fully ripe coffee fruits). Additionally, when coffee fruits are in the civet's intestinal tract, under appropriate temperature and humidity conditions, they undergo fermentation by the civet's gut microbiota. This promotes the balance of overall aromatic components during later roasting—a point precisely articulated by researchers from the National University of Singapore in their paper. Furthermore, civets have an aromatic gland sac in their bodies that provides a certain aroma-enhancing effect on the coffee. However, most civet coffee on the market today comes from artificially farmed civets, obtained by feeding them coffee beans and then collecting and processing them centrally.

The Unique Flavor of Civet Coffee

How does the taste of civet coffee actually differ from regular coffee? The National University of Singapore published a research paper on civet coffee, suggesting that civet coffee's flavor is superior to regular coffee. The authors found that Indonesian Sidikalang civet coffee was more popular than the other three types due to its good overall flavor balance, despite having similar flavors to regular Sidikalang coffee. Meanwhile, Thailand's Doi Chang coffee and China's Yunnan coffee have unique sulfur flavors, as these two coffees contain sulfur compounds reaching 8.32 mg/kg and 12.63 mg/kg respectively. Sulfur flavor is particularly important for coffee quality. Good coffee is often grown near volcanic craters, where volcanic rocks are rich in sulfur elements. Sulfur compounds participate in reactions to generate numerous coffee flavor substances.

Elephant Dung Coffee

Besides civet coffee, there is also elephant dung coffee. As a novelty, it was likely inspired by civet coffee. Based on research paper retrieval results, no research reports on elephant dung coffee flavor have been found to date. There is only one report about wild elephants in western India destroying local coffee plantations, where the author even used the term "human-elephant conflicts," writing from the perspective of harmonious coexistence between elephants and humans.

Scientific Analysis of Elephant Dung Coffee Claims

The online explanation that elephant dung coffee undergoes enzymatic breakdown of proteins in coffee beans through the elephant's digestive system, resulting in a non-bitter taste with aromas of milk chocolate, nuts, red berries, and subtle spices, is difficult to withstand scientific scrutiny. First, the endocarp of coffee fruits is extremely hard, and like civets, elephants cannot digest it. Therefore, the breakdown effect on proteins in the endosperm protected by the endocarp is minimal. If elephants could digest coffee endocarps, people would not be able to select complete coffee beans from their feces. Second, proteins are not substances that adversely affect coffee flavor. On the contrary, proteins are important precursors to coffee flavor substances. During roasting, proteins degrade into peptides or amino acids. Proteins and other nitrogen-containing compounds such as peptides, amino acids, trigonelline, etc., undergo Maillard reactions with reducing sugars, acids, quinones, etc., to generate amino acid aldehydes and amino ketone flavor substances. The impact of elephants digesting coffee fruit pulp and skin on protein-related coffee flavor substance generation is negligible compared to the flavor substances generated by protein reactions during high-temperature roasting. Numerous authoritative research results have already shown that protein-related reactions during roasting generate large amounts of flavor substances. Although melanoidins have a bitter taste, they also have antioxidant effects and provide health benefits to humans.

Factors Affecting Coffee Flavor

There are many factors that affect coffee flavor, mainly including coffee variety, origin, raw coffee bean processing method, roasting method (degree), roasted coffee storage method, grinding method, etc. High-altitude Arabica coffee flavors are of higher quality than low-altitude Robusta coffee—this has been scientifically proven by countless laboratories. Vietnam is the world's largest Robusta coffee producer, and its raw coffee bean trade price is approximately only 2/3 that of Arabica coffee from high-altitude origins elsewhere, which also reflects this quality difference.

Geographical Distribution of Exotic Coffees

The most famous civet coffee is produced in Indonesia, and the most famous elephant dung coffee is produced in Thailand. Why haven't famous civet coffee and elephant dung coffee emerged from Brazil and Colombia, the world's main Arabica coffee-producing countries? This reason is worth exploring. Low-altitude Robusta coffee has heavy earthy and musty flavors, which are considered undesirable flavors. Southeast Asian regions have a method of roasting coffee with added sugar (some also add butter), known in Western countries as Torrefacto roasted coffee. This roasting method enhances the generation reactions of flavor substances and can, to some extent, mask undesirable flavors. Some regions in China also mix cheap Robusta with Arabica coffee for roasting, also adding sugar during the roasting process. Low-altitude areas are unsuitable for growing Arabica coffee, but coffee remains an important economic crop in these regions. China's Yunnan coffee belongs to high-altitude origin coffee with excellent quality, highly favored by domestic and international large processing enterprises, mainly used to process instant coffee for supermarkets or traditional ground coffee for cafés in large and medium-sized cities.

Conclusion: Beyond Novelty

Whether it's civet coffee or elephant dung coffee, they might satisfy curiosity, but in reality, raw coffee beans that pass through animals' digestive systems easily exceed microbiological standards. Although the later roasting temperature reaches around 200°C, sufficient to kill microorganisms, certain safety risks still exist. The consumer price of civet coffee or elephant dung coffee being comparable to luxury goods is worth contemplating—there's no shortage of hype and gimmicks from manufacturers in this.

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