I - The history of Vietnamese poop coffee
Vietnamese poop coffee is a rather unique specialty of this country that ranks top 2 in the world in terms of coffee exports. In 1857, at a church in Ha Nam, realizing that the soil and climate here were suitable for growing coffee trees, French monks brought coffee varieties from the island of Martinique and French Guiana in Latin America. First, Arabica coffee trees were tried in the North, then in the Central, until a few decades later they appeared in Buon Ma Thuot when the French colonialists promoted the colonial exploitation policy.
Vietnamese weasel coffee was born from lush green coffee plantations surrounded by vast primeval forests, which at that time was a habitat for wild animals including weasels. At the time of harvest, they sneaked into the coffee plantations to find food, and the ripe coffee cherries were both new and attractive to them. Like the natural mechanism of any mammal, the weasel’s stomach can only digest the flesh of the coffee fruit, and the seeds will be excreted to form Vietnamese poop coffee.
At that time, the amount of coffee supplied to the market was a luxury limited item, reserved only for the elite and politicians. The farmers working in the plantations were strictly regulated and prohibited from using the harvested coffee beans. To wiggle around that, the farmers picked up coffee beans from weasel droppings, considered waste by French coffee plantation owners, to be processed into their own secret drink. The coffee beans collected will be washed, dried, peeled, roasted, ground into powder and filtered through boiling water to enjoy. The most surprising thing was that this Vietnamese weasel coffee had a strangely delicious taste, better than the coffee of the plantation owners, which they are sometimes generously allowed to taste.
II - What makes Vietnamese poop coffee special?
Weasel or more correctly the Viverridae is a type of rodent distributed scatteredly in Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and southern China. In Vietnam, there are many species of weasel, but only 2 species eaten coffee fruit are Masked palm and Small Indian Civet, with the former not suitable for making Vietnamese weasel coffee because of their large size and strong teeth which break the seeds creating an unpleasant odor. Meanwhile, small Indian civets are very gourmet, smaller in size and quite careful, slow to eat, do not break or damage the seeds.
At harvest time when the coffee cherries are ripe, the weasels will sneak into the plantations at night, choosing only the best red coffee berries from the trees most evenly ripened. With a long, sensitive nose, weasels have the ability to sniff and identify coffee berries with no strange smell, no bugs, scratches nor sticky plastic. This means that Vietnamese poop coffee beans have been guaranteed for quality and uniformity right from the very first stage of selection - a natural but so rigorous selection, that even current science cannot reach such a level of perfection.
Another special thing that makes the weasel coffee brand is the miraculous transformation of coffee beans in the stomach of this animal. When eating the fruit, they remove the indigestible shell, then digest only the coffee meat, and finally excrete coffee beans that are still covered in the husk. Enzyme secreted from the weasel’s stomach promotes the fermentation of coffee beans, which are naturally brewed when digestive enzymes penetrate the husk to break down the inherent protein structure.
The hassle in processing Vietnamese poop coffee is also a reason making this product so valuable. Weasels’ feces containing coffee beans will be quickly collected within 24 hours to prevent ants, insect borers or humid air to blacken the beans. The collected products will then be flushed through water to remove bacteria and impurities, and then dried in a closely monitored temperature environment. At some places, the beans can also be left to dry in the morning sun for weeks until the outer husks peel off, resulting in a product that is bright in color and more flavorful when roasted.
When roasted, coffee beans will become hard, crispy and less bitter, creating a very strange taste compared to regular coffee, with the fragrance of molasses mixed with chocolate, the mild bitterness and sourness of fruit mixed with a hint of tobacco. Vietnamese poop coffee is mostly produced in the Central Highlands, with an annual output of about 200kg and weasel coffee Vietnam price is also ranked among the most expensive in the world, about at least 65,000,000 VND for 1 kg ($2800).
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