J's 1st Dad's Day

Well, we were @ our field conference for Dad's Day & had about an hr free time to steal away to a closeby Orchid Garden. J's recently taken great interest in orchids so was a fun trip. He's even found a wild one up in the mts where we work & brought it back to our seaside home...pix later. Anywho, interesting OTHER thing @ the Orchid Garden was an animal as well as it's poo that were on display - read below why! (hard to believe this is the world's most expensive coffee - yikes!)

(Info from http://www.paradise-coffee.com/index.htm - check it out for more pix)
Kopi Luwak are robusta or arabica coffee beans which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Indonesian Civet (family of Viverridae). This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago.

"Kopi" is the Indonesian word for coffee and "Luwak" is local name of this animal which eats the raw red coffee 'cherries' as part of its usual diet. This animal eats a mixed diet of insects, small mammals and fruits along with the softer outer part of the coffee cherry but does not digest the inner beans, instead excreting them still covered in some inner layers of the cherry.

Locals then gather the beans -- which come through the 'animal stage' fairly intact -- and sell them on to dealers. It is believed that enzymes in the stomach of the civet add to the coffee's flavour through fermentation of some type.