Is This The World’s Largest Coffee Producer?

I hear people complain all the time about the price of  a cup of coffee at Starbucks.Three, four, five dollars or more for a cup. And that does seem like a lot to pay for a cup of coffee, but imagine paying $15 for a cup of exotic coffee. Must be some special brew you would think. Just wait to see where these coffee beans come from.

No doubt by now you have gathered from the lead picture that elephants must be involved somehow in the production of the world's most expensive cup of coffee. You would be correct in that assumption. Look at the picture below. What do you suppose those ladies are doing?

As hard is it is to believe, these ladies are picking out coffee beans from the elephant dung at an elephant camp in Thailand. The process is amazing as Thai elephants naturally refine hand picked coffee beans.

The elephants eat the coffee beans, and some 15-30 hours later, out  come the beans. The coffee beans are then plucked from the elephant dung, washed and roasted. It takes about 10,000 beans to make a kg of coffee. The cost in U.S. dollars is around 500 per pound, making it about $15 per serving. It takes 33 kilograms of raw coffee cherries to produce one kilo of Black Ivory Coffee.

Could we interest you in a cup of coffee? And would you like cream and sugar with that - or just peanuts?