Black Ivory Coffee is a brand of

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. Seeds of ...

produced by the Black Ivory Coffee Company Ltd in northern

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

from Arabica

coffee beans A coffee bean is a seed of the ''Coffea'' plant and the source for coffee. It is the pip inside the red or purple fruit often referred to as a coffee cherry. Just like ordinary cherries, the coffee fruit is also a so-called stone fruit. Even tho ...

consumed by

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae ...

s and collected from their waste. The taste of Black Ivory coffee is influenced by elephants'

digestive enzymes Digestive enzymes are a group of enzymes that break down polymeric macromolecules into their smaller building blocks, in order to facilitate their absorption into the cells of the body. Digestive enzymes are found in the digestive tracts of anima ...

, which breaks down the coffee's

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, res ...

. The company claims to rescue elephants from tourist trade abuse.

Availability

Black Ivory Coffee is among the world's most expensive coffees, at US$2,000 per kilogram. The producer sells the coffee to select luxury hotels, where it is sold at US$50 per cup. The coffee can also be purchased online. The coffee product in 2021 was 215kg. The supply of Black Ivory coffee depends on the availability of coffee cherries, the appetite of the elephants, the number of beans destroyed through chewing of the beans and the ability of the

mahout A mahout is an elephant rider, trainer, or keeper. Mahouts were used since antiquity for both civilian and military use. Traditionally, mahouts came from ethnic groups with generations of elephant keeping experience, with a mahout retaining h ...

s and their wives to recover intact beans. The high price of the product is largely due to the large number of coffee cherries needed to produce the finished product: 33 kilograms (72 pounds) of raw coffee cherries results in one kilogram (two pounds) of the finished product. Most of the beans are not recoverable as they are chewed by the elephants, become fragmented, or are lost in the bush after being excreted.

Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation

This coffee was first produced by Black Ivory Coffee Co. Ltd. at the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation in Chiang Saen, an elephant refuge that cares for rescued elephants. Now, Black Ivory Coffee no longer produces in the Golden Triangle but in Surin province in north east Thailand. Approximately 20 elephants at the foundation produce the coffee. Eight percent of Black Ivory Coffee Company sales are donated to the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, which is used to fund the elephants' health care. The consumption of the coffee cherries does not adversely affect the elephants, and veterinary tests concluded that caffeine is not absorbed from the coffee cherries they consume.

References

{{Coffee Coffee brands Food and drink companies of Thailand Agriculture in Thailand Thai brands Foods and drinks produced with excrement

Availability

Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation

See also

References