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The most expensive coffee in the world

Do you remember the scene in The Bucket List where Jack Nicholson has a fancy pants coffee maker brought into his hospital room to brew his own coffee by using the most expensive beans in the world?  Later in the movie, Morgan Freeman writes him a letter explaining what exactly it is that he’s drinking (watch clip – pardon Nicholson’s cuss at the end).

My very own bag of Kopi Luwak brought home by my sister from Indonesia.

I kind of thought the Kopi Luwak storyline in the movie was just another example of hilarious Hollywood scripting.  It’s not. (You can even buy it on Amazon!)  There really are kitty farms in Indonesia (and other parts of Asia) where workers sift through cat poop to wash, dry, and roast the coffee beans they’ve eaten.  And then they sell them for almost $160 per pound.

Cra-zy.

During my sister’s Asian travels she stopped in Indonesia and picked up a pound of Kopi Luwak (on the cheap) for me to try.  I’ll be honest – it’s been sitting on my kitchen table since the beginning of July while I’ve been working up the guts to open the bag, grind the beans, and make myself a cup of coffee.

First cup of Kopi Luwak coffee in one of my Starbucks collector’s mugs from Jessie

I finally did it yesterday morning.  I opened the bag . . . inspected the coffee . . . ground the coffee . . . watched the pot brew . . . poured a cup . . . added sugar . . . then creamer . . . and stared the cup down.  I kept picturing kitties in litter boxes and workers with thick industrial purple rubber gloves, wondering if I could ever be sure they really cleaned the beans.  Ignoring the clamor in my head, I shut my eyes, lifted the cup and drank.

It tasted great.  Smooth . . . bold . . . and honestly . . . a lot like Starbucks.  Which got me thinking that either there’s nothing really special about the kitties and their intestinal juices, or perhaps the people from Starbucks have been hanging around the kitty farms too.  In any case I’ll enjoy my fabulously expensive coffee until it’s gone and will proudly say I’ve tried Kopi Luwak . . . and even lived to tell about it.

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