Crappuccino

Bold and nutty, with a smoothness you can only find in cat-like mammal dung

INDANG, Philippines - Its origins might put off some coffee drinkers, but an exotic bean that draws top dollar from connoisseurs is plucked from animal droppings. Not just any animal. The coffee comes from beans eaten but not digested by the palm civet, a cousin of the mongoose that roams tropical forests...

Although they normally eat sugar palm nuts, civets prefer the ripest coffee cherries during harvest season, which runs December to March. The beans pass through their systems undigested and are deposited as sausagelike clumps on the forest floor.

Reyes says the civet's digestive process, particularly the enzymes in its stomach, probably gives the brew its distinctive flavor and aroma.

Mmmm. Good to the last droppings.