Black Ivory Coffee………the latest craze after Luwak!
Coffee is getting competitive. With a growing coffee trend for the unique and offbeat, restaurants are looking for the newest flavors and boldest methods of brewing to keep guests coming. The rarest beans currently bring in $1,100 per kilogram, so what sets them apart from any others? Dung.
A Coffee Trend for the Unusual
Black Ivory Coffee from Maldives is the most expensive coffee around. At $50 a cup, this rarity beats out Kopi Luwak and Coati-dung Coffee as the world?s most expensive and rare coffee, though they?re all derived in a similar fashion.
The Science Behind It
Elephants are fed coffee cherries (the pit of which is the coffee bean) along with bananas and sugar cane. Thanks to the enzymatic process of digestion, proteins within the coffee cherries are broken down, creating a less bitter, more pleasurable taste. The bananas and sugar cane give the coffee a fruity flavor.
Who?s Behind Black Ivory Coffee?
After ten years of research and a $300,000 investment, Canadian entrepreneur, Blake Dinkin, created Black Ivory Coffee. The company is located in Chiang Saen, Thailand where mahouts (elephant riders) and their wives feed and collect the coffee cherries.
Where to Find Black Ivory Coffee
Black Ivory Coffee is only sold to select five star hotels (and one store dedicated to the conservation of Asian Elephants) at the moment. For a taste of this rare brew, visit the following hotels:
In Thailand
- Napasi by Orient Express
- Conrad Koh Samui
- The Pavilions Resort
- Paresa Resorts
- The Peninsula Bangkok
- Phulay Bay, A Ritz-Carlton Retreat
- Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle
- The Siam Hotel
- Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok
- Anantara Golden Triangle
In Maldives
- Anantara Dhigu Resort and Spa
- Anantara Kihavah Villa
- Naladhu
In the United States
- Elephant Story
Treatment of Animals in this Coffee Trend
There have been reports suggesting that the civets involved in making Kopi Luwak were caged and abused, leading to the prevalence of ?cruelty-free? coffee.
As for Black Ivory Coffee, the elephants are said to be free-range and treated ethically. A portion of these coffee sales goes to paying for free veterinary services for the elephants.
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 flavour 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.
The process is labour intensive. Pure Arabica beans are hand-picked by hill-tribe women from a small mountain estate…
and fed to the elephants.
Once the elephants do their business, the wives of elephant mahouts collect the dung…and break it open and pick out the coffee.
After a thorough washing, the coffee cherries are processed to extract the beans, which are then sent to a gourmet roaster in Bangkok.
Black Ivory’s maiden batch of 70 kilograms (150 pounds) has sold out. Dinkin hopes to crank out six times that amount in 2013. For now, only the wealthy or well-travelled have access to 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 more than £30 a serving.
