Monkey Coffee Is Even Stranger Than It Sounds

Although not exactly a caffeine fiend, this author is known to sip a or here and there. And yet, I was today years old when I learned what monkey coffee consists of or that it even existed in the first place. Now, you will be too.

Yes, monkey coffee. You may ask the obvious question, is it made of monkeys? Made by monkeys? Well, no and not exactly. There are no monkeys working as baristas to craft this coffee, but there are some involved in the first step of its creation.

Monkeys in South East Asia snack on fruit of the coffee bean plant, and spit out the seeds. That is where the story of this caffeine delicacy begins. Coffee bean farmers are essentially lemonade of lemons in this situation because the monkeys won't stay away from the bean crops.

While the name monkey coffee did conjure up thoughts of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" brains scene, you and I can both take comfort that this coffee is not made of monkey. The monkeys really only have a bit of saliva in the game, but no other bodily functions are involved, thankfully. What is monkey coffee? Monkey coffee mostly comes from Taiwan and India, where Formosan rock macaques and rhesus monkeys get into coffee bean crops.

The animals chew on the 'fruit' or 'cherry' of coffee beans and then spit them out. Rather than try to fight them off, coffee bean farmers use the masticated and discarded coffee beans to create a delicacy of the coffee world. The monkeys saliva has an enzyme which partially breaks down the coffee .