You must have heard of Kopi luwak, an Indonesian translation for civet coffee, ‘the most expensive coffee in the world’. We have that coffee, too, in the Philippines and it is called Kape Alamid (in Luzon region).
The reason why it’s so costly is because it does not use the conventional way of harvesting the coffee fruit, known as ‘cherries’, and extracting them by the usual methods. Rather, the fruits are waited to be eaten by civet cats which live on the plantations, let it pass through the animal’s digestive tract, where the covering of the fruit is mostly digested, and the beans are then defecated onto the ground. Coffee farmers then collect the coffee beans, wash and sun-dry, before selling it to coffee producers. Civet coffee is known for its high aroma, smooth taste, and low acidity.
Now comes a 41 year-old Chinese calligraphy teacher who is quitting his job at Sichuan University to turn entrepreneur so he could focus on producing the “world’s most expensive tea.”
An Yanshi’s secret? Panda dung! In fact he already purchased 11 tons of excrement from a panda breeding center to fertilize a tea crop he planted in the mountains of Sichuan province in southwestern China, home to the black and white bears.
An says he will harvest the first batch of tea leaves this spring and it will be the “world’s most expensive tea” at almost 220,000 yuan ($35,000) for 500 grams (18 ounces). Traditionally, Chinese tea drinkers regard the first batch of tea to be harvested in the early spring as the best and successive batches, regarded as inferior, which sells for around 20,000 yuan.
The teacher turned entrepreneur got the idea to use panda dung as fertilizer after attending a seminar where he discovered that the bears absorbed less than 30 percent of the bamboo they consumed, excreting the remaining 70 percent.
He then experimented on the dung to fertilize two tea plants in his office and noted the much greener appearance of the leaves.
While An hopes to see his company, Panda Tea, flourish, his other intention, which is laudable, is to convince Chinese farmers and the world, for that matter, to shift from using chemical fertilizer to animal dung, if one has respect for the environment.
“Panda dung is rich in nutrition… and should be much better than chemical fertilisers,” An emphasized.
Panda Tea’s logo is that of a smiling panda wearing a bow tie and holding a steaming glass of green tea.
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