Gotcha, golden pooper!

Well, that's it. Our unwanted, noisy and, as I discovered today, amazingly stinky guest we already introduced you to, is finally gone. After four months, the pest control company has managed to get to him.

Cute, you think? Not that much, because apparently over years its pee could have seeped through our roof (i.e. his home) and delicately perfume our bedroom just below.

We could have chosen not to get rid of him though, and instead feed him ripe coffee beans, then brew the most expensive drink in the world. Forget about gold and bauxite, oil and nickel, coal and tin, and get acquainted with the newest high valued Indonesian commodity: cat poo. More precisely, the dejection of this little wild cat, the civet (called « luwak » here) after he went on the rampage on the coffee fields of the archipelago’s highlands.


The « kopi luwak », fragrant black drink obtained by roasting the coffee grains collected from the animal's poo, is the best coffee in the world – it is not I saying it, it is Science: a Canadian scientist has already done the required lab tests that prove it – therefore its price reaches the heights of its perfection: up to 3000 USD a kilo if purchased in a hip Balinese café. « It is good and it is rare, hence its price », says Wirawan, the owner of the café whom I've met few months ago. « But what we sell, it’s mostly a story ». The story of an inner voyage that produces a less bitter, quite chocolaty drink – and a nice slab of cash for whom knows how to market it.

I've had the chance of tasting the coffee - for free, one the perks of my job. It is indeed deliciously velvety and strong. I wouldn't pay the 20 dollars for an espresso cup though; and considering that our late guest would not have been able to produce that much poo to allow us delicious kopi luwak every breakfast, I won't regret him. Not one bit.