Researchers Discover Way To Spot Crappy Coffee

sciencehabit writes "People who enjoy the most expensive coffee in the world can soon sip without worry: Researchers have come up with a way to tell if their cuppa joe is real or faux. The luxury drink in question—Kopi Luwak—is produced from coffee beans pooped out by the palm civet, a time-consuming process that helps contribute to the beverage's price tag of between $330 to $500 per kilogram. In a new study, researchers chemically analyzed four different blends of coffee—authentic Kopi Luwak, regular coffee, a 50/50 mix of the two, and a brew of coffee beans that producers had chemically treated in an attempt to simulate mammalian digestion. Of the hundreds of organic substances naturally present in coffee, a handful enabled the team to distinguish Kopi Luwak from the other brews. The technique may even be sensitive enough to distinguish pure Kopi Luwak from versions adulterated with varying percentages of other coffees—which offers some degree of reassurance when your morning mud costs about $15 a cup."

Grande with a shot of poop

[Zargg]

"The luxury drink in question—Kopi Luwak—is produced from coffee beans pooped out by the palm civet, a time-consuming process that helps contribute to the beverage's price tag of between $330 to $500 per kilogram."

Wait a minute...we wait for a random animal to eat and poop out the coffee beans, and charge MORE for this? What exactly is supposed to make this better than the fresh coffee bean?

I'm dissappointed

[msobkow]

Here I thought they were going to discern the quality of coffee, not whether it's been shat by a civet cat. I've no interest in tasting cat-shit coffee at any price.

Now if they'd have come up with a way to quantify the robustness, the body, the acidity, the richness, the roast, and so on for *sane* coffee, I'd have had to read the article. :P

Don't need ...

[c0lo]

Fortunately, for the time being, I don't need that much sophistication to stay away from coffee shitted by a mamal: the price tag seems to be a good enough indicator.

easier answer

[Kohath]

If you can't tell the difference from the taste, stop paying $300 per kilogram.

Re:Easy - Wrong category mod.

[pellik]

I thought this way when I lived in Seattle. Now that I live on the East Coast I find that Starbucks hits the 90th percentile for quality around here. Standardization of shit is a huge step up in most of the country.

To give you an idea of how bad it is- most people here seem to think that Dunken' Donuts has the best coffee.

God do I miss a perfectly pulled shot of espresso where the bitterness is only on the tip of your tongue and there is no salty aftertaste.