Brazil's Bird Brews: Acquiring taste for coffee made from bird droppings

World
Europe

It's not your usual cup of coffee. Coffee beans picked from the droppings of a bird in Brazil are the source for one of the most expensive coffee varieties in the world. Our correspondent Paulo Cabral visited a farm in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais to investigate and taste for himself.

It's harvest time at this farm in Brazil dedicated to specialty coffee. This worker is picking one variety of berries from the thousands of trees planted on the hillside. This other worker is also picking coffee but in a very different way. He looks for the droppings of a local bird, the Jacu, which feeds on the coffee berries on the planation then drops the digested beans behind.

They are then collected, sun-dried, separated and later roasted into premium coffee.

This farmer says he produces just a small quantity of the Jacu coffee using droppings of the wild birds that freely flock to his plantation but there are already farmers looking to produce Jacu Coffee in larger quantities.

ALVARO COLI, OWNER SITIO DA TORRE "Before I heard about the possibilities of Jacu Coffee, I saw the bird in my plantation but I thought it was only a problem because it damaged the trees. But then a local roaster told us about it and said they wanted to try out producing this coffee. So we started paying attention and noticed we had a lot of it in our areas."

In premium coffee markets, varieties digested by animals are among the most expensive sold. The Brazilian Jacu is just one example and here, one kilo of Jacu Bird coffee goes for about 60 U.S. dollars.

PAULO CABRAL CARMO DE MINAS, BRAZIL "This is actually the first time I am going to try the Jacu Coffee and our expert barista already suggested that I should try it made on paper filter and not the espresso machine. So I will have a sip of water to clean up my taste buds and see what this is about. And there it comes nice and hot. Thank you!"

Very interesting taste, very good coffee. I am not really an expert to tell you the details but certainly it's a good strong coffee. And it's a very interesting experience to be drinking a coffee which has already been inside a bird.

GABRIEL BARISTA "The Jacu bird has a natural instinct to select only the ripest coffee berries so the quality begins in the selection. Then when it goes through the Jacu's digestive system, it slightly changes the taste of the bean, leaving the coffee more acidic, with citrus notes something like a hint of lemon."

This roaster says the amount of Jacu coffee traded is small but that it's an important example of the country's premium coffee varieties.

HELCIO JUNIOR, DIR. UNIQUE SPECIALTY COFFEES "It's important for us to educate consumers, to bring this kind of information to the coffee market. We need to make clear that there is a difference between the mass and the premium coffee, just like it happens, for example with specialty beers and chocolates."

Brazil is by far the world's largest producer of coffee and tops exports, too. But industry leaders complain the country's name is more associated with quantity than quality and hope specialties like Jacu bird coffee will help change that perception. Paulo Cabral, CGTN, Carmo de Minas, Brazil.