Strange Brews Edition 3 – Monkey Spit Coffee

Strange Brews Edition Three– Monkey Spit, Monkey Do

We’re back for Strange Brews Edition 3, and we’re finally NOT talking about poop coffee. Don’t fret though; we’re not leaving the animal kingdom. This coffee comes out the other end, but that doesn’t make it any less pleasant sounding. Monkey Spit coffee is a thing that exists apparently, and you know that we’re going to cover every last detail of it.

You Can't Be Serious. Why?

Monkey Spit Coffee is a rare coffee that’s extremely popular in India and Taiwan. It’s made up of coffee beans that have been chewed up and spat out by our primate friends. Specifically, it’s rhesus monkeys and Formosan rock macaques. Cute, aren’t they? That’s about all that’s cute about this, as it gets pretty gross.

From Pest To Pro

The monkeys really enjoy eating raw coffee beans (AKA green beans). The only issue is, they can’t actually digest them. So, they chew them up like chewing gum and spit them out on the ground. Rude right? Well this is actually a learned behavior. They’ve learned that coffee foragers look for these, and they’ll actually spit them out in front of their handlers expecting a reward!

This is actually super useful for farmers, as the monkeys used to be viewed as a pest in the coffee fields. The monkeys would ravage the coffee plants and ruin the farmer’s crops. However, after brewing up a cup or five, farmers realized that the beans the monkeys spit out had a particularly sweet flavor to them. Thus, monkey spit coffee was born.

There better be a good reason for this

So there is a bit of science behind why monkey coffee tastes better. First, the monkeys instinctually choose the very best beans in a crop. With their skills, they can select the ripest, sweetest beans that result in the best coffee. Second, the monkey’s saliva naturally break down the enzymes of the bean, which make the bean sweeter, bringing out notes of chocolate, vanilla, and citrus. We can’t believe this actually works, but it does. Can’t argue with science baby!

How Much do you expect me to pay for this?

Obviously, since this is a super exotic “process” the coffee costs a pretty penny. If you want to enjoy a cup of monkey spit coffee, it’ll cost you around $45 USD. That’s just for a cup! The beans themselves cost hundreds of dollars a pound. Chances that Bill Gates keeps a monkey spit coffee special reserve are extremely high.

No More of this, please

So, once again we’ve covered a coffee that is heavily involved in an animal’s digestive system. We promise that this will be the last one for a long, long time. There are other strange and funky things happening in coffee, and not all of them have to be gross. Check in next time for a sweet, bubbly surprise. To pass time until then, check out some of our NuRange Cold Brew Coffee. We promise we don’t spit in it.