Karikuy – Taste the Rare and Expensive Coati Dung Coffee

Karikuy – Taste the Rare and Expensive Coati Dung Coffee

If you are a connoisseur of rare coffees of the world, you may have heard of the dung coffee produced in Peru. What’s different about this coffee is that it is procured from the excreta of a South American mammal called the Coati.

Coati locally known as uchunari or mishasho lives in the wild across wide ranging habitats including hot and arid regions, Amazonian rainforests, and cold Andean mountains. Dung coffee producers corral and feed them* red ripe and sweet Arabica coffee beans and collect their droppings.

Coatis consume different fruits and vegetables along with coffee beans. This produces coffee with unique aroma and complex taste because the scent of other food items seeps into coffee beans. The excreted coffee bean stays intact and only the top layer of the bean is altered with enzymes and bile juices. The enzymatic action results in removal of bitter proteins from the bean. Once the Coati excrement is collected, it is thoroughly washed and dried hygienically. The bean is then milled to remove the second layer.

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*Important to note that corralling and feeding of wild Coatis is not an encouraged behavior. Doing so encourgages these wild Coatis to be attracted to humans and the built up civilisations where they learn “learned helplessness” where they do not hunt for themselves, they are then also poached and victim to roadkill.

This is not a product or process that World Coati Day condones. However if you wish to consume, we urge you to think about the impacts on these wild populations and the process required to collect their excrements. Some excrements are free sourced, where as others are collected by confining the Coatis to small pens to achieve such a product.

Image Credit: Karikuy