…A coworker was telling of this coffee bean that id first eaten by squirrels, then passed through their intestinal tract, and finally picked from their fecal matter, and brewed. According to her, this somehow enhances the taste of this particular bean. I couldn’t find any results on any websites (then again, maybe I should have used something other than “Coffee and squirrels”). Has anyone heard of this practice? And whose job is it to pick through squirrel droppings to locate these beans? Is it done on some sort of ranch where the squirrels are kept, or are they “free-range?” And does this prove my theory that coffee tastes like crap anyway?
It’s called “Luwak coffee,” and the reason you couldn’t find it is because it’s not a squirrel, but rather a kind of palm civet called the Luwak. Dave Barry wrote a piece about it a couple of years ago. Plugging “luwak coffee” into your favorite search engine will give you more info than you probably wanted to know. 