The Difference Is, Jesus Loves You, I Don't

Lots of people really love coffee. I, however, am not one of them. It doesn't matter how you make it or what you put in it, I taste nothing but the vile bitterness. Latte, cappuccino, mocha these are all just code words for a spit take waiting to happen.

So what is it about coffee that people love so much? Do they really enjoy it or is it all about the social context? Think about it, coffee holds a place in our society to which very few things can compare. It works its way into our vocabulary in many different places, even in situations where it's not actually involved. Coffee break, coffee grinder, you need to switch to decaf, coffee mug. All of those phrases refer to coffee but in common usage don't actually have to involve it at all. Matt Damon was wrong when he told us that going to eat a bunch of caramels was just as arbitrary as drinking coffee. Caramels don't have the same social status as coffee. Going to eat caramels is weird. Going to get a cup of coffee is normal.

Then again, maybe it's the chemical dependency. Sure you can get caffeine in other ways, but none as convenient and socially acceptable as coffee. I'd love to write it off as this and say that those of us who don't like coffee are somehow superior in our refusal to partake of the brew, but it doesn't explain everything. There are too many people who love coffee but drink decaf because they don't want the caffeine. There are far too many people who truly enjoy their coffee and can tell the difference between one bean and another or one roast and another. The ability to detect nuances in what, to me, is a uniformly bitter and harsh beverage amazes me.

I've said all that to say this. Whatever the reason, people love coffee. Some people will spend hundreds of dollars a month on lattes, while others spend a small fortune on special beans that are precisely roasted to release the perfect combination of flavors. But really at what point do you love your coffee so much that you decide to try Civet Coffee? In case you aren't familiar with it, let me explain. Civet Coffee, or Kopi Luwak, is a special very expensive type of coffee. The civet, a creepy cat-monkey looking creature, eats the berries of the coffee plant. (Think of the coffee berries as cherries, with the coffee bean as the cherry pit.) The animal eats the fruit and digests it, but doesn't digest the bean. When it is finished it gets rid of the waste, in this case a bean, it the manner typical for all mammals. These beans are collected, dried, roasted and sold to be made into coffee (hopefully, another step in there involves washing them really, really well). People buy this, and they don't just buy it, they pay a fortune for these beans. How good do the beans have to taste before it is worth while to spend twenty or thirty times more for beans that were recently residing in a civet colon? More to the point, who first thought it would be a good idea to collect and use these beans?

So, all you coffee lovers out there can ponder just how good this coffee would have to be before you would try it. Me, I don't have to worry about it. Right now, I'm glad to be the guy that when the waitress comes to the table and asks if he'd like some coffee, shakes his head and says, "No thanks, I don't."

Until later...


Edited to add: Wikipedia has a nice entry on Kopi Luwak which also has links to a few other articles.