SONG CHALLENGE WINNER!

The Song Challenge:   Let's Have Another Cup of Cat Cra . . . uh, Coffee   – Well, it seems that the coffee market is being undermined by runaway planting in Vietnam and Indonesia, flooding the market with cheap coffee.  Meanwhile, consumption has been relatively flat.  A Starbucks on every corner doesn't mean people are drinking more coffee; thus, the proliferation of gourmet offerings as customers' tastes continuing to get more rarefied.  One coffee retailer in Atlanta sells something called "luwak" coffee, which it claims is picked by the common palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphrodites), often described as catlike, but probably better thought of as an Asian version of a raccoon, coati or kinkajou.  The palm civet is also known as the 'toddy cat,' for its fondness for the palm juice that is tapped to make a sweet liquor.  On coffee plantations, palm civets dine heavily on coffee cherries.  However, they digest only the outer pulp of fruit, passing the coffee beans unharmed through their digestive systems.  And because palm civets repeatedly deposit their droppings in piles at the same spots, the coffee beans are easily collected, roasted then brewed into kopi luwak--civet coffee.  Kopi luwak is reputedly the best of all coffees because palm civets pluck and eat only the most perfectly ripe cherries!  The price of a pound of kopi luwak coffee?  $300.00.  Whether the beans are affected as they go through the animal's gut is also unknown. For that matter, there is some debate about whether coffee called kopi luwak was ever anywhere near a palm civet.  Asked how he knew the beans were really collected from civet scats, one coffee company representative said, "We operate on trust."  As for the taste, he described the brew as "gamey".   One dealer described the same scene being repeated every time he tells someone about luwak coffee:  "At some point in the story, when you explain how this cat eats only the perfectly ripe coffee cherries, the listener gets this cautious look on his face, and says, "Are you telling me that..." and the dealer always nods and says, "Yes, that's exactly right. Roasted cat-shit for $300 a pound."


The Civet's Lament by Bradypus

In days of old, when times were good
We civets strolled throughout the wood
With nary a care, the mood was merry
We'd sniff the air, we'd eat the cherry

Those coffee beans, we chose the best
Like lazy queens we would digest
Then leave a pile among the grass
And sit and smile at what we'd pass

We little thought those passing drops
Would soon be bought in coffee shops
That what we laid by hedge or ditch
Would soon be weighed to make men rich

The greed of man! It breaks my heart
You see them plan, they think they're smart
An awful sin! A grievous harm!
They fenced us in a battery farm.

The kopi luwak that you would drink
O turn it back! I beg you think
Of me and mine, behind these bars
We sit in line – we bear the scars

But it's a fact things have changed
Digestive tract is rearranged
No beans pass on from what we eat
The coffee's strong ... revenge is sweet!

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