I read once that a major reason the coffee is supposed to be good, is that the animals (in the wild) tend to seek out the ripest, healthiest coffee beans to eat. They're abundant (prior to human intervention), so why settle for less?

But then we cage them and force-feed them whatever, so they're just medium (or low) quality beans to start with. So even if you look past the cruelty, it's not even the quality of coffee the reputation suggests.

What do you mean? Force feeding caged animals to shit coffee beans isn't ethical?

Vast majority of it is just cheap coffee labeled to be this and marked up for tourists / gift market. Have tried it, just tastes like cheap old coffee. It's not something genuinely sought after by coniseurs.

I ate at a restaurant that sold this stuff. It was $85 a cup. I can appreciate a good cup of coffee but never at that price (monetary or cruelty).

https://coffeesupremacy.com/elephant-poop-coffee/

It's done for the aromatic flavors.

It's also animal cruelty.

You can make some for yourself.

Number 1) Eat a bunch of coffee beans

Number 2)

There are apps that cost thousands of dollars that display a jpeg that say "You are rich" and rich people buy it to flex to other rich people.

They have too much money.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

I wish it was the latest. This animal abuse has been going on a long time.

My guess is, since they eat coffee cherries, some farmer had his harvest ruined and washed the seeds out from the shit in desperation, just to get told it's the best coffee somebody has ever had.

Lol that would be dumb af, of course it's a cat.

the story I heard (from an Indonesian dude) was the colonial plantations didn't allow locals to drink coffee. They noticed the civits only ate the ripest coffee berries... bla bla bla, shit coffee was the only choice and it was really good?

I don't know the history of the photo, but I know some Kopi Luwak 'producers' force feed the civets coffee cherries to maximise production. So I can't say this is a natural shit for a civet, because it could be human induced.

I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite comment on lemmy.