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How much would you pay for a cup of coffee from beans that had picked out of animal excrement? Kopi Luwak makes a $3.50 latte look economical.

Called Kopi Luwak, it goes for $300 a pound and relies upon the paradoxurus hermaphroditus for its, uh, cachet. The rare coffee is heralded in this month's Esquire magazine, in the annals of the National Zoo, several universities, countless trade journals, several newspapers and a half-dozen "urban legends" Web sites.

But back to the paradoxurus hermaphroditus, which is actually a 4-pound, fairly agreeable, palm-tree-dwelling civet cat that lives on the islands of Sumatra and Java.

Along with palm sap and melons, this selective little creature eats choice, fresh coffee berries. The berries travel relatively unsullied through the cat's digestive system, are excreted and plucked from its dung by plantation workers — and roasted.

Yeah, it sounds like a hoax, but their story checks out.

(Via New World Disorder)