Expensive Civet Coffee: 6 Creative Uses of Animal Feces

Creative Use 1: Premium Beverages

Example: Kopi Luwak

Kopi Luwak, also known as civet coffee, is one of the most expensive coffees in the world, priced at $300 to $800 per 500 grams and produced mainly in Indonesia and neighboring regions. In Hong Kong, a cup of Kopi Luwak can cost two to three hundred dollars, and it is available only in one or two of the most luxurious hotels. Kopi Luwak has become the "new darling" of coffee, drawing coffee enthusiasts even more than traditional top-grade Jamaican Blue Mountain. The coffee is, in fact, collected from the droppings of a tree-dwelling wild animal known in Indonesia as the civet cat, then roasted.

Civets prefer to pick the most mature, sweet, plump, and juicy coffee cherries from the trees. After passing through their digestive tract, the outer pulp is digested while the remarkably hard raw beans are expelled completely intact. Through this digestive process the beans undergo a singular transformation: as the proteins responsible for bitterness are broken down, Kopi Luwak loses much of its bitterness and gains a mellow, smooth, rich taste.

Early Indonesian farmers regarded the civets that stole ripe cherries as mortal enemies. Yet some "first to eat crabs" pioneer had the ingenious idea of picking beans out of civet droppings to make coffee. After processing and roasting, the result earned endless praise from the public and experts alike.

Creative Use 2: Precious Spices

Example: Ambergris

Ambergris is a spice containing 25% ambrein. Added to perfume, it forms a film on the skin that lets the fragrance persist for a long time; historically it served mainly as a fixative. It carries both a fresh, gentle animalic scent and special sweet notes with earthy, mossy undertones. Its main components include ambrein, benzoic acid, and beta-ionone. It is also a valuable traditional Chinese medicine with effects of resolving phlegm, dispersing nodules, promoting qi circulation, and activating blood.

Ambergris is also the most mysterious of spices. At first, people only occasionally found it washed up on beaches; its rarity made it known as "grey gold" and "liquid gold." Initially people believed it was the saliva shed by "dragons" sleeping in the sea — hence the Chinese name, "dragon spittle perfume." Scientific research later revealed its true source: a huge marine creature, the sperm whale.

Sperm whales dive to depths of thousands of meters to feed on large marine creatures such as squid and octopus. After swallowing its food, the whale cannot digest the hard, sharp horny beaks and cartilage; its digestive tract suffers the cutting and grinding of these objects, so it produces special secretions to wrap around the sharp material and relieve the pain. Periodically these secretion masses are expelled with the feces and eventually float to the sea surface — as ambergris.

Freshly excreted ambergris actually has no fragrance at all and even carries the pungent, unbearable stench of feces. Only after being caressed by ocean waves, baked by sunlight, and catalyzed by air does it become extraordinarily fragrant, with a scent that lasts and lasts.

Creative Use 3: Cultivating Tree Species

Example: Dodo Bird Feces

The African island nation of Mauritius once had two unique species: the dodo bird and the tambalacoque tree. The dodo was a large, slow-moving, flightless bird, now extinct. The tambalacoque is a precious tree with straight trunks, hard wood, and fine grain. Around 1693, when the last dodo disappeared, people noticed that tambalacoque trees had also developed "infertility." By the 1980s only 13 precious tambalacoque trees remained in Mauritius. Anxious scientists finally uncovered the survival link between the two: dodos ate the tree's fruits, and only after the pulp and hard seed coats had passed through the dodo's digestive system could the expelled seeds germinate. Scientists then had turkeys eat tambalacoque fruits to stand in for the dodos, bringing the tree back from the brink of extinction.

Creative Use 4: Medicinal Healing

Example: Ye Ming Sha (bat feces), Wang Yue Sha (rabbit feces), Wu Ling Zhi (flying squirrel feces)

Experts in traditional Chinese medicine point out that many animal feces are excellent medicinal materials with remarkable effects — some quite valuable. As early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing's "Synopsis of the Golden Chamber" recorded prescriptions using animal droppings — chicken manure white, male rat droppings, burned dog feces, horse feces, and cow liquid (dilute cow dung) — to treat disease. Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" records as many as 51 types of animal feces used medicinally, involving 32 kinds of animals, from birds and beasts to humans.

The records include: pig feces, called "zhu ling," treats pediatric disorders; sheep feces treats infantile diarrhea, called "shi zhong su," treats pediatric disorders and anorexia; donkey feces treats excessive menstruation; camel feces, applied externally, stops nosebleeds; lion feces breaks stagnant blood and kills hundreds of insects; tiger feces treats deep-rooted abscesses and fistulas; deer feces treats difficult labor; cat feces treats smallpox pustules that have sunken inward; wolf feces treats fish bones stuck in the throat; monkey feces treats neonatal tetanus with lockjaw; pigeon feces, called "zuo pan long," treats scrofula and scabies; "bai ding xiang," which is sparrow feces, is warm in nature, bitter in taste, and slightly toxic — it relieves stagnation, treats hernias, removes corneal opacity and pterygium, and treats vaginal discharge in women; swallow feces treats five types of urinary obstruction; peacock feces treats leucorrhea and difficult urination; eagle feces treats deficiency accumulations and kills tuberculosis bacteria; and so on.

Interestingly, the ancients also gave some animal feces elegant names. Rabbit feces, which kills parasites and treats dim vision with corneal opacity, malnutrition, and hemorrhoids, was named "wang yue sha" (moon-gazing sand). Bat feces, which clears heat, improves vision, disperses blood, and eliminates accumulations — used for internal and external eye opacity, scrofula, and malnutrition — was named "ye ming sha" (night-bright sand). The feces of the complex-toothed flying squirrel (also called "han hao niao") or the flying squirrel, which activates blood circulation, removes blood stasis, and regulates qi, used for bites from venomous snakes, scorpions, and centipedes, was named "wu ling zhi" (five-spirit fat).

Creative Use 5: Ancient Contraception

Example: Crocodile Feces Contraceptive

Thousands of years ago, Egyptians invented various contraceptive techniques. The contraceptives recorded on papyrus had as their main ingredient the feces of an animal abundant in Egypt — the crocodile — plus honey, sometimes with frankincense (a resin), aloe vera, and even milk. The suppository made from this formula was placed at the cervical opening and inside the vagina for contraception — arguably "the earliest contraceptive in human history."

The ancient Egyptians are said to have believed that animals like crocodiles and elephants possessed mysterious powers, hence their use in contraceptive formulas. Scientifically, though, the method rests on the same principle as modern topical contraceptive creams and suppositories: crocodile feces are strongly acidic and do have a spermicidal effect, so its effectiveness was likely quite real. Because of the powerful odor, however, this contraceptive method has long since "disappeared."

Creative Use 6: Cleaning Products

Example: Cow Dung Toothpaste, Camel Urine Shampoo

Earlier reports indicated that the Berbers of Tunisia like to brush their teeth with cow dung — an invention even made into toothpaste, a unique daily necessity among the Berbers.

The method goes roughly as follows: dry the cow dung until it is hard as stone, grind it into fine powder, mix in spices and minerals, then use mint branches to dip in and clean the tooth surfaces and the gaps between teeth. This compound formula is said to strengthen teeth, whiten them, and prevent gingivitis — genuinely useful for Berbers who eat meat year-round.

The Bedouins, nomads of the North African Sahara, likewise wash their hair with the notoriously foul-smelling urine of camels. Locals say the desert climate is harsh and water severely scarce, and Bedouin hair often harbors lice; camel urine happens to be an excellent lice-killer, which is why it became their "shampoo." Hair washed with it is said to become shiny enough to reflect objects, and washing the face with it is said to make the skin smoother. This "beauty method," originating in ancient Egypt, once spread across North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula — the famous Cleopatra reportedly washed her hair with lion urine.

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FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation: Legendary Coffee Without the Four-Figure Price

If Kopi Luwak's mystique tempts you but the price does not, the classic alternative is FrontStreet's Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 — the highest grade, from the historic Clifton Mount Estate, which has grown coffee since around 1750 at an average of 4,300 feet (1,310.64 meters), where cool afternoon mists and mineral-rich soil extend cherry ripening. Provenance is fully traceable through origin certificates and the traditional 15, 45, and 70 kg wooden barrels in which Blue Mountain ships. Medium-dark roasted, it shows nuts, dark chocolate, cream caramel, and gentle sweetness with a clean, balanced finish. Rest 4-7 days, then brew on a Kono: 15g of coffee, 87-88°C water, 1:15 ratio, three pours of 30g, 120g, and 225g.