#Black ivory coffee full

John Roberts, who runs the sanctuary, remembers his first thought when Dinkin approached him with the idea. ItРІР‚в„ўs located in the far northwest corner of Thailand where the country meets Burma and Laos, an area once synonymous with opium production. Also, coffee cherries may naturally have been part of an elephantРІР‚в„ўs diet, if grown in an area where they were grazing, he says.Р”Вinkin works in partnership with the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, a sanctuary for rescued elephants. The key reason he chose elephants was they only have one stomach and consume a lot of food in a day. His quest led him to various animals and took him to Indonesia before he finally settled on elephants in Thailand. Farmers often would merely wipe cat feces over coffee beans to pass the beans off as digested, he says. (Shutterstock)Р”В«ut he decided to move on after finding its production fraught with fraud. Known in Indonesian as kopi luwak, it also involves the red, ripe cherries encasing the coffee bean being eaten by the animal.Р”В«lack Ivory's $50-a-cup coffee tastes like the diet of the elephants that digested the beans, says founder Blake Dinkin. The pricey coffee was popular several years ago. Over a decade ago, Dinkin was aiming to market civet cat coffee from Africa. Many beans are crushed when the elephant chews or lost in the river during bathing. To make a single kilogram of coffee beans, it takes about 33 kilograms of raw coffee cherries. During that time, they pick the flavours of the elephantРІР‚в„ўs diet, giving the coffee a distinctive taste, says Dinkin.

#Black ivory coffee full

It takes one to two days for the coffee cherries to make their full trip through the elephants digestive tract. 'ItРІР‚в„ўs like being a waiter in a restaurant,'Р’В said Dinkin. Dinkin mixes tamarind, salt and other fruits into their food, depending on the elephantРІР‚в„ўs preferences. Dinkin slips a few coffee cherries into their diet, but they can be fussy about what they eat. The Black Ivory Coffee is found in exclusive hotels for about $50-60 CdnР’В a cup or can be purchased online for aroundР’В $130 for just over 100 grams.Р”В®ach elephant eats 150 kilograms of food a day. The Torontonian is the first person in the world to feed raw coffee cherries to elephants and harvest them from the elephantРІР‚в„ўs deposits to make some of the most exclusive and expensive coffee in the world. HeРІР‚в„ўs already lost several thousand dollars this way. Once the elephant poop is wet, Dinkin canРІР‚в„ўt sift through it and recover the hidden nuggets of coffee beans hidden within. An elephant has just taken a dump and an island of feces is now floating downstream. 'Oh, there!'Р’В Dinkin says, cringing as he points to the river. The sun rises over a branch of the Mekong River in northern Thailand that serves as bathing waters for local elephants.Р”В«lake Dinkin, a Toronto entrepreneur, carefully watches a few of the large mammals.