Specialty coffee is made using beans recovered from animal droppings or spit out by monkeys that look like shells. On the occasion of World Coffee Day, the Poznan Zoologist talks about the “flavors” of coffee, as well as about the eco-friendly trend of growing coffee in the shade.
As emphasized by Professor. Pyotr Trijanovsky, The impact of extensively used coffee plantations on the natural environment is certainly negative. Nowadays, the cultivation of “shadow coffee” is becoming increasingly popular. It is friendlier to birds and amphibians. As compensation for low yields, these farms receive special certificates.
On World Coffee Day (observed on September 29, but created on October 1), a zoologist from the University of Life Sciences in Poznan states that the properties of caffeine in coffee were discovered thanks to animal observations. The most frequent legend tells of an Arab monk who noticed while herding goats that they were sometimes stimulated after eating fruit from coffee trees. And in another version of this story, the fruit was eaten not by goats, but by birds, which gained energy and vitality. a. Tryjanowski explains that it is possible that they are representatives of a common species – Arabian gall, fond of all species, and even larger seeds.
Gourmet – cured beans
The animal world reveals the secrets of processed grains, that is, those that are burned and eaten, which pass through the digestive system of the animal and the excrement is excreted outside
The most famous of these is probably the expensive luwak coffee, which comes from Southeast Asia, the pods of which are extracted from the excrement of palm birds, known locally as luwak. Muntjack coffee is produced in a similar way, but this time the fruit of the coffee tree is eaten by a small representative of deer. There is also bat coffee, because the beans, unknown in Poland, are eaten by insect-eating bats. However, if someone prefers coffee beans that stick out from where they are and not elsewhere in the body, then this is the show. There are monkeys – Taiwanese macaques eat the shells and spit out the same pills” – explains the professor. Trizhanovsky.
He adds that a popular Brazilian coffee called Jacu Bird Coffee is the result of a collaboration with birds, a dark-legged Penelope species, known as jacu. At first, birds that eat coffee trees were considered unusual pests. They chose the best fruit, but the grains passed through the digestive system practically intact, so they lost some bitterness. Jaco coffee has a distinct and delicate flavour. Its cost is due to the time-consuming search for bird droppings and their manual processing.
World Coffee Day was created on October 1, 2015 by the International Coffee Organization in Milan. In essence, it’s an opportunity to promote fair trade coffee and celebrate coffee as a beverage. Celebrations are held all over the world.
PAP – Science in Poland
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