Coffee Alamid-Rarest Coffee in the World

Coffee Alamid-Rarest Coffee in the World
Originally uploaded by Gryphon Hall
found in a coffee shop in West Fairview, Quezon City

My Mother-in-law, her two sisters and I were talking about our experiences with coffee and tea. During the course of our discussions, Ærynn's Mom tried very hard to remember one particular variety of coffee, which she said was supposed to be the most expensive coffee variety in the world.

Well, of course, I was intrigued and (I must admit) a bit doubtful. I knew certain types of coffee varieties can be expensive; but I didn't know that there would be one special variety of coffee that would be much more expensive than the ones I purchase at Starbucks. Well, she said, that's because the beans are first eaten by some type of wild cat, then it passes out whole in their droppings, farmers gather them, and roast them. That's what makes them the most expensive coffee in the world. In fact, she challenged me to find out about it and I promised to do so.

Well, the most logical first place to look should have been the internet, right? Just Google it and I should have found out quickly. As it is, I actually found out about the most expensive coffee from a Philippine coffee shop; I also found out why they were so darn expensive—the Civet cat that eats the coffee cherries are endangered. For a small jar of coffee just slightly larger than an ink well, one has to fork out PhP300, that's roughly US$6.00 for what is essentially just one or two mugs of coffee. Still, it seems that even that is cheap compared to what the British have to pay for when they import the Indonesian version of Coffee Alamid, which is called Kopi Luwak. One unfortunate Britisher couldn't see the difference between normal coffee and Kopi Luwak, as he describes in his blog.

I wanted to purchase some... but as I had quit my inhuman call centre job just recently, this particular luxury is one that I find I cannot afford all of a sudden. Well... that is another story. I'm actually playing around with the idea of applying for a coffee barista job in the local coffee shop; it's lower pay, but I don't have to have recurring nightmares about Remedy, Help Desk and Avaya conking out.

Oh, and finally, I've begun to lose weight again...