Jakarta, CNN Indonesia — In the lush hills of northern Thailand, a woman struggles to pick coffee beans from a pile of elephant dung. It’s part of the important work that goes into making one of the world’s most expensive drinks.
This remote corner of the Thai city that borders Myanmar and Laos is actually better known for drug smuggling than coffee. However, Blake Dinkin (44) decided this place was perfect for running the company, which combines elephant conservation with a coffee business.
“When I explained my project to the mahouts (elephant riders), I knew they thought I must be crazy,” said the Canadian founder of Black Ivory Coffee, as reported on the NY Daily page. This coffee company uses elephant digestive tracts to make high-end drinks for coffee lovers.
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Initially, he used civets to make luak coffee using beans collected from civet droppings in Asia. However, the final quality of the product weakened as demand continued to grow in Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Often ferrets are kept in cages and forced to eat coffee beans. This is very far from Dinkin’s desire to support the environment, not destroy it.
Lions and giraffes are also on the list of animals for filtering coffee beans. However, Dinkin settled on elephants, after he discovered elephants also sometimes ate coffee during periods of drought in Southeast Asia.
He also works with elephant rescue charities that save these huge mammals from the tourist trade.
However, making coffee from the poop of a thick-skinned star is apparently more difficult than he thought.
“I think it’s as simple as taking coffee beans, giving them to elephants to eat, then going out and making good coffee,” Dinkin said. His first attempt, produced a coffee drink that was ‘drying’ and undrinkable.
“It took me nine years to really succeed in doing what I wanted,” he said.
(win/mer)
