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Black Ivory1 coffee
| Black Ivory Coffee is an brand of coffee exclusively2 produced by the Black Ivory Coffee Company Ltd in Northern Thailand from Arabica coffee beans consumed3 by elephants and collected from their feces. The taste of Black Ivory coffee is influenced by elephant's stomach acid, which breaks down the coffee's protein. The coffee beans are digested4 within 15 to 70 hours, and are present with various other ingredients in the elephants' stomachs, which imparts5 specific flavors to the product. Black Ivory coffee has been described as "very smooth without the bitterness of regular coffee" and is among the world's most expensive coffees, at $1,100 per kilogram. It has limited availability, and at a few luxury hotels it is available at the price of USD $50 a cup. The supply of Black Ivory coffee depends on the availability of coffee cherries6, the appetite of the elephants, the number of beans destroyed through chewing of the beans and the ability of the mahouts7 and their wives to recover intact8 beans. The high price of the product is largely due to the large amount of coffee cherries needed to produce the finished product: 33 kilograms (72 pounds) of raw coffee cherries result in 1 kilogram (2 pounds) of the finished product. Most of the beans are not recoverable because they are chewed by the elephants, become fragmented, or after being excreted9 are unable to be found in the bush. The coffee is produced by Black Ivory Coffee Co. Ltd. at the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, an elephant refuge that cares for rescued elephants. Approximately 20 elephants at the foundation produce the coffee and 8% of Black Ivory Coffee Company sales are donated to the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, which is used to fund the elephants' healthcare. The consumption10 of the coffee cherries does not adversely11 affect the elephants, and veterinary12 tests concluded that caffeine is not absorbed from the coffee cherries consumed by them. |
1 ivory: 象牙 2 exclusively: 只、僅僅 3 consume: 消耗、嚥 4 digest: 消化 5 impart: 給予、施加 6 coffee cherries: 咖啡豆、咖啡果實 7 mahout: 象夫、馴象人 8 intact: 完好的、完整無缺的 9 excrete: 排泄 10 consumption: 消耗量 11 adversely: 不利地 12 veterinary: 獸醫 |
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