Thai luxury resort hotel Anantara offers a $ 50 cup of Black Ivory Coffee. This coffee uses coffee berries that are hand-picked one by one from elephant droppings.



Black Ivory Coffee's coffee beans are high-quality arabica coffee beans (cherries). This is given as part of the elephant's diet. Coffee fruits are said to be excreted as feces after traveling inside the elephant's body and become the raw material for Black Ivory Coffee.

But why do we need to feed elephants? There seems to be a scientific basis there. The hotel's press release states:

"Research has shown that elephant digestive enzymes break down proteins in coffee cherries. Protein is one of the causes of coffee bitterness, which can reduce bitterness."

The coffee berries discharged as elephant droppings are taken out of the droppings by "hand-picking", dried in the sun, and processed into coffee beans. The coffee beans made in this way are said to be trading for $ 1,100 per kilo.

Currently, Black Ivory Coffee is only available in Thailand and four Anantra hotels in the Maldives. So what does Black Ivory Coffee taste like?

Garret, who tasted Black Ivory Coffee, wrote the following in the comments section of US media CNN Go:

"The taste was pleasing and unexpected, and I felt like I was tasting chocolate, nuts and red berries. It had no bitterness like regular coffee and was very mellow."

A part of Black Ivory Coffee's sales is being used to maintain the elephant conservation center in Thailand.