What you may have already heard is absolutely...true! One of the world's most expensive coffees in the world comes not only from Indonesia, but also from a wild animal's...behind. Okay, so I assume you are wondering why someone would take a sip of such a 'repulsive' product, but one thing that needs to be mentioned is that the beans are, in fact, cleansed before use. Thought that would settle your stomach. No? Alright, let's just learn a little about this true-to-the-core rumor that we have been hearing about.

The wild beast-like creature that produced the exotic delicacies is called a civet cat. It is a fact that this coffee bean is not harvested by human hands. It is handpicked by those little, exotic looking cat-meets-a-weasel looking thing with long narrow noses that have quite a penchant for the finest Indonesian beans. The civet cat is a nocturnal creature which feeds among the Robusta and hybrid arabusta trees at night, searching for the prized berries and making themselves quite a rewarding meal on the seed (or coffee bean-to-be) inside after chewing away all the luscious fruit.

This lucky animal produces the coffee product cleverly named Kopi Luwak, from the Indonesian words coffee and civet. Now, even though I have never paid the $600 many fans prefer to pay, nor have I paid the $30 for a cup of the wildcat brew, but the resulting product does sound a bit interesting. Once the civet cat consumes the cherry and it enters its stomach, the enzymes in the animal's gastric juices sift through the beans which removing the harsher outer layer which is known to cause bitterness in coffees as well as some of the caffeine. So, that's it? That is why there is such a hefty price tag on this drink-gone-wild? Well, that and the fact that not too much more than 1,000 pounds of this style of coffee are produced each year.

So, overall, we have learned that the reason individuals and coffee enthusiasts alike enjoy sipping on the left-behind bean brew is simple because of the lower bitterness, caffeine, and rarity. Now, I don't get the caffeine part, but I guess it's a lot more of an organic way to go versus the traditional way of chemically decaffeinating coffee beans.

S. Michael Windsor is currently publisher and a writer for The Franchise Coffee Network online Franchise Coffee Guide. A premier Franchise Coffee information platform. Visit us today at http://www.franchise-coffee.net