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[sqm]

The most expensive cup of coffee that I've heard of is priced at around $50 a cup or $600 per pound. Kopi Luwak is the most expensive roast. It comes from raw red coffee beans that are eaten and partly digested and then disposed of by palm civets (weasel-like animal) in Indonesia. The animal digests the outer part the the coffee cherry, but not the inner bean, which comes back out through excretion. Kopi Luwak comes from palm civet poop.

Apparently the digestion process eliminates some of the bitterness and leaves the bean rich with unique flavour. Why is it so expensive? Firstly, palm civets only eat the ripest of the coffee cherries. Secondly, the undigested beans are handpicked from the civets' waste. It's as if the coffee beans were handpicked from beginning to end, ensuring that only the best and ripest ones are used in your cup of coffee.

I have never tried this expensive coffee, nor am I an expert. If you know more about Kopi Luwak or of any other expensive coffees, share your knowledge and tasting experiences.

And if coffee isn't your thing, what's the most ridiculously expensive edible you've ever tried or seen? By "ridiculously expensive, " I mean relative to the average cost of it.

[starlagurl]

Ha, there are actually a bunch of people that have tried it on TP:

Here's a couple funny ones:
http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entri...94800/tpod.html

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entri...63060/tpod.html

[travelmonster]

Blimey, this is another one of those things where I love coffee, but it wouldn't matter how much money I had, I'd never ever spend that much money on a cup of coffee.

[polydemic]

Saw Andrew Zimmern drink that in Vietnam (on Bizzare Foods). He said it's rich, smooth, & doesn't taste at all like something out of an animal's digestive tract. But in his opinion, it's not something he'd pay $50 for.

[greekcypriot]

For sure I am not the kind of person to spend so much money on a cup of coffee. Even if I was having a cup for free, I would not be excited.

However, something very expensive is the Greek Red Saffron which comes from Kozani, up in North Greece. It takes 150.000 flowers to produce 1.000 grammars of red saffron.
Luckily we just have to put a pinch of these stems every time we use it, so it is no need to use a big quantity of it. It gives color and taste to different dishes, even sweets. (I will try and find full details and post in the Greek forum page). It is considered to be the BEST in the word!

http://www.travelpod.com/members/greekcypriot
(Troodos Mountains - Cyprus in my last entry)

[sqm]

I think I would try Kopi Luwak if I ever come across it. I think it would be one of those once-in-a-life-time experiences because I probably won't be so willing to pay so much for one cup of coffee ever again. Unless I get hooked to the poop coffee.

Anyone heard of the ice cream restaurant Serendipity in New York City? For their 50th anniversary, they came out with an ice cream sundae priced at $1000 USD. It consists of the finest vanilla ice cream, some sort of caviar, fancy chocolates and candies and real gold leaves. Here's a full description of it: http://most-expensive.net/ice-cream-sundae.

It looks pretty ..interesting to me. The most ridiculous thing is that it takes a few days to prepare this..ice cream...dish! Makes me honestly wonder how people come up with these things.

Coffee from poop...ice cream with fish eggs..."interesting" is an understatement.

[travelmonster]

The sundae looks yummy! But I wouldn't fancy fish eggs on my ice cream

defo wouldn't pay the price either!

[azreal]

IS this the same coffee they were talking about in that movie..... The Bucket List

[jrheavymetal]

I try not to drink coffee that has first entered and then exited another animal. It would be kind of like buying a used cup of coffee, wouldn't it?

[sqm]

Maybe if you think of it as "recycled" coffee, you'd feel slightly better about it? Was that convincing enough? Haha, I tried...

[sianeth]

I try not to drink coffee that has first entered and then exited another animal. It would be kind of like buying a used cup of coffee, wouldn't it?

Anything you drink is pretty much like that though... its called the water cycle!

[jrheavymetal]

I try not to drink coffee that has first entered and then exited another animal. It would be kind of like buying a used cup of coffee, wouldn't it?

Anything you drink is pretty much like that though... its called the water cycle!

That's good, I hadn't thought of it that way...

[barsie]

tbh coffee is always to an individuals taste anyway- so you'll never get a perfect cup of coffee for whatever price.

Think about it- make a pot of coffee put on a table with 10 people say at it. Then give them various condiments- milk, cream, white sugar, brown sugar, even lemon. They'll all then proceed to make a different cup of coffee to their individual taste.

[jrheavymetal]

I agree, tea is the same way, I have seen people do some strange things to a cup of tea.

[Paul]

There is a coffee chain called Starbucks - has anyone tried that?

You go in and have to line up to be served. Then wait for your coffee to be made. It is generally loud in their shop. The people behind the counter are busy and don't really interact with you, although you couldn't really talk to them over the noise anyway. Then it costs (I can't remember, but something like $5 - 10). Very expensive. And it doesn't taste that good.

It is not as expensive as the place listed above. But still very expensive and really bad service and experience.

But I have seen lots of people going in to a Starbucks shop to drink something that would cost about 50 cents if they made it themselves at home. So I think for many people they spend way over the amount of that coffee listed above, but over a period of time - paying for so-so coffee and a bad service experience at an already rich large company.

????

[jrheavymetal]

I'm not even sure if Maine has a starbucks. Maybe on the Portland end of the state.
I find the best tasting cup of coffee made at home is to buy three different brands of coffee, mix them up in a large bowl, then put them back in their containers. As a rule, one of the three brands has to be tasters choice. That's how we come up with our coffee.

[starlagurl]

What? Why on earth?

[aopaq]

Nice rant 2olives ... couldn't agree more.

But now I am wondering if I ate (or swallowed) some of those raw, red coffee beans and then "collected" them later if I could sell a cup of coffee for even just half of $50??

Honestly though, ten cups of that $50 coffee could cover quite a bit of my travel costs. I would sacrifice coffee for a trip any day!

[laorfamily]

Lemon? In coffee? Ewwww.

A small piece of dried lemon peel in a small bitter cup of coffee, it's fantastic.

I do agree with everyone else about Starbucks, their coffee does suck.

I believe Starbucks failed miserably in the Middle East, where there is a strong culture of strong coffee.

[greekcypriot]

I was just reading about the small dried piece of lemon in bitter coffee.
It sounds interesting, and I will also try it. But it has to be a DRY piece.

Have you ever tried Greek coffee in the small white thick cup?

Anyway, in case you want to know, old women in Greece use to put the juice of half a small lemon in Greek coffe, if they want to stop diarrhea.
It works miracles!

http://www.travelpod.com/members/greekcypriot
(New photos and new entries in my blog today)