This was a surprisingly fascinating thing to research and write.
The wildly-expensive and exotic brew of civet coffee is made from beans that have been eaten, digested and excreted by civet cats across Asia. It's a strange and possible dangerous practice. These researchers are helping to work out what makes the coffee taste distinctive, while hoping to protect the welfare of the civet cats.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03467-w
Fun fact: civet coffee isn’t the only delicacy that utilizes animal excretions. Thai Black Ivory coffee uses beans eaten and pooped by elephants; Peruvian coati coffee has passed through a coatis, a local relative of the racoon; some favour coffee beans that have been excreted by bats, and some Chinese teas are enhanced with insect droppings. Honey comes from bee excretions, and Argan oil from the pits of olive-like fruits consumed by goats in Morocco.
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