IT is surprising what some people do to be hip and happening and often inadvertently show the world that they have more money than ethics.
Whether it involves diamond encrusted wristwatches or flashing a gold tooth or one sporting a sparkling diamond , these are mild forms of narcissism which, while making the bling slave look ridiculous, do little damage to others.
But when it comes to the ultimate celebrity status symbol, drinking coffee made from the excrement of the civet cat at a cost of about R100 a cup, it ignores the suspicion that something doesn’t smell right in the kitty litter box of the in crowd.
The National SPCA has come out fighting after it learned that Civet poo coffee, kopi luwak, is being imported into South Africa.
Kopi Luwak is made from the semi-digested coffee beans found in the solid excrement of the Asian Palm civet.
The NSPCA said there are some serious animal welfare concerns regarding the production of this coffee.
Historically the partially digested coffee beans were sourced by hand from the faeces of wild, free roaming civets which feasted on coffee cherries in the plantations in Singapore and Vietnam and other Asian countries. But due to the rise in demand for Kopi Luwak from the western world, the civets are now being caught and held in small, cramped cages and fed coffee cherries. Being solitary, nocturnal animals, the stress created by their captivity and close proximity to others leads to them fighting with each other and in some instances chewing off their own legs. The diet of bean cherries exclusively also leads to malnutrition and death.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) launched an investigation into the treatment of civets on farms in Asia. They found animals living in “horrific” conditions and claim, on their website, that the industry knowingly mislabels coffee from captive animals as wild-sourced civet coffee.
Tony Wild, said on his Word of Mouth Blog that he introduced Civet coffee to the UK, and regrets having done so. “Now its overpriced, industrialised, cruel – and frequently inauthentic. That’s really hard to swallow.”
Wild has launched a campaign aimed at “ending an industry that I created,” and claimed that it is now almost impossible to find genuine kopi luwak.
In South Africa our rhino population is rushing to extinction, driven by the same status seeking that makes one drink this crappy coffee. Some entrepreneurs have taken the civet cat coffee a step further. According to reports, four Maldives resorts and one in Thailand offer Black Ivory coffee, an exclusive brew made from beans which have gone through the digestive tract of Thai elephants. At more than a thousand dollars a kilogram this is slightly more expensive, the ultimate, exclusive bling, than that of the poor little civet.
But is that it? No, also on offer is poo coffee from Brazilian jacu birds, Bonobo monkeys and the Peruvian uchunari, a long snouted Andean animal.
The NSPCA calls Kopi luwak the “cruellest cup you’ll ever drink,” and calls on coffee lovers to refuse coffee with unethical origins.
