Most expensive coffee passes through weasels

A new career has appeared in the Central Highlands in the last two years –mixing weasels with coffee so as to collect weasel coffee – the most expensive and special coffee in the world.

Coffee beans are first eaten and then regurgitated by weasels, and then gathered and marketed as the most exclusive, high-grade coffee in the world.

Coffee addicts may have heard about ‘Kopi Luwak’, the high-grade coffee originating in Indonesia.

The strange thing is that while there are more than 50 countries growing coffee and weasels can be found in tens of countries worldwide, to date, Indonesia is the only provider of the special product.

Every year, only 200 kg of this coffee is provided for the world market, priced from $1,200 and $4,500/kg.

Therefore, it is not surprising that billions of coffee drinkers around the world have never tested weasel coffee.

In 2007, some local newspapers began placing short advertisements about the demand for real weasel coffee, dry or wet, at the price of VND1-10mil/kg. The buyer was Trung Nguyen Corporation. While the price of dry robusta coffee hovered around VND30,000/kg, the sky-high price of one million VND surprised many people.

Two years after the advertisement was placed, Trung Nguyen Corporation purchased some hundreds of kilogrammes of high-quality materials. At the second Buon Ma Thuot Coffee festival, the corporation attracted the special attention of the public by introducing weasel coffee marketed as gifts for state leaders and diplomats at the government level.

Every coffee box was priced at $750, or $3,000/kg.

Also at the festival, there was a shelf displaying dried weasel coffee of Nguyen Quoc Khanh, a farmer in Krong Pak district in Dak Lak province, who is now breeding a herd of 46 weasels.

The weasels are fed the most delicious ripe coffee beans collected from neighbouring areas at prices 3-4 times higher than normal coffee. The lucky critters are given a diet of beef, chicken, bananas and breadfruit.

Those who have doubts that weasel coffee is real can go to the Central Highlands to see them at work with their own eyes.

Tien phong

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