Strange Brews Edition 6- Jacu Bird Coffee
What’s up you jive turkeys? Things have been crazy in coffee land, so we figured we’d pop in with a new edition of Strange Brews. You know, a quick checkup to see what the wonderful hipsters in the wide land of coffee are up to. Let us tell you, they are not disappointing. Remember that cute blog we did on Coffee Soda? Welp, we’re hopping back on the weird train. Just when you thought we couldn’t possibly find more animal poop coffee…. we did. It literally never ends. Give a man a coffee; he will drink for a day. Give a man a coffee farm; he’ll find an animal to feed his beans to and brew their poop into coffee. Today, we touch on the magnificent Jacu Bird coffee of Brazil.
Who r u, jacu?
The Jacu Bird is a big bad mofo. Slow, like a turtle. Phat (with a PH) like a pheasant. This endangered species inhabits the Andes Mountains as well as the Mata-Atlantica rainforests of Brazil. It is known by it’s loud, honk like mating call. Unsurprisingly, the Jacu Bird is not a quick fella. They scurry around the forest floor, rummaging for fruits and insects. You know what else is close to the forest floor? Coffee cherries.
Hippies, man
These bird boys are not typically coffee eaters. Rather, they’re attracted to them by circumstance. A pioneering farmer, Henrique Sloper, created the practice. Sloper prescribes to a very unique type of farming, known as Biodynamic Farming. We cannot stress how hip this farming practice is. It utilizes both the cosmic cycles on the moon as well as a combination of different natural fertilizers (i.e. other animal’s poop) to create a holistic growing environment. Do we understand it? Absolutely not. But the Jacu Birds go absolutely crazy for it.
Sloper noticed that the birds were particularly attracted to his farm, and that they really got after the coffee cherries on it. A coffee connoisseur himself, he was familiar with both Civet Coffee and Kopi Luwak Coffee (yep, we’ve covered them) and saw straight cash homie. To quote the man directly: “The real challenge lay in convincing my coffee pickers that instead of berries, they needed to be hunting for bird-shit.”
There's Always A Reason
So what’s the science here? It’s pretty simple. Much like the Monkey Spit Coffee, the Jacu Birds only eat the ripest coffee beans. Ripe beans make for delicious coffee. Upon watching video, it became clear the birds are actually able to tell which beans are the ripest better than the naked human eye. In a pile full of seemingly similarly perfect cherries, the birds are very particular about which ones they’ll choose. Additionally, the Jacu’s quick digestion process means that their stomach acid doesn’t negatively affect the bean’s taste.
Hello Sir, How Much?
The coffee itself is nutty and sweet. People give it rave reviews. And like all animal poop coffees, it will set you back a pretty penny. $54 a kilo to be exact (a traditional bag of coffee costs $3 per kilo). Like 50 Cent said, “poopin’ aint easy.”
Absolutely No End In Sight
Do you want us to stop writing about this kind of stuff? We’re not. Why do people feel the need to continue to feed animals coffee, only so that they can rummage through their droppings and brew it into overpriced coffee? We have no idea. But, we will continue to write about those people until they stop. We keep starting these articles thinking that there can’t possibly be another one out there, but low and behold Google keeps on giving. You may think this has begun to go off the rails, but we’re just staying true to our word. Stay weird coffee world, and keep drinking Strange Brews.