Friday, July 20, 2007
Page 11
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
Champagne of Coffees Just a Load of…er…
By J’AMY PACHECO
I’m not a champagne kind of girl.
It’s not that I don’t like the bubbly stuff – I do. I’m just too cheap to shell out big bucks for something that has no lasting value beyond the headache I’d likely have the morning after drinking it.
It is, therefore, extraordinarily difficult for me to comprehend why people are paying $35 for a cup of coffee – coffee that doesn’t even have bubbles.
I suppose it’s not the cost of the coffee – reported to be $600 per pound – that shocks me as much as what makes it so expensive. The coffee is considered “special” because its beans have been partially digested by some jungle animals; a process that is said to make the resulting coffee deliciously less bitter.
In plain English, the beans are eaten, pooped out, retrieved and sold to people with way too much money in their checking accounts.
The animals that do the coffee processing are called “civets.” I’d never even heard of them before I read an article about the expensive coffee. Turns out they look sort of like a cross between raccoons and weasels. I have no idea what their droppings look like, except that they’re apparently full of coffee beans.
Obviously, I’d never make it as a rich person.
I know somebody who would probably love this coffee, which is called “kopi luwak.” A friend of my dad recently paid a quarter of a million dollars for a car. I can’t even remember what kind of car it is, because I’d never heard of it.
I once read that a Bugatti Veyron could be had for a cool $1,700,000. That seems like a lot for something that essentially just takes you from one location to another, and still leaves you sitting in traffic. For that kind of money, I hope it comes with its own coffee producing civet.
Maybe it’s because I don’t have even a remote chance of becoming one, but I don’t get rich people. Take caviar, for example. It’s terribly expensive and considered a delicacy. I tried it once, and thought it tasted like something that could one day become civet coffee.
Oddly enough, my daughter likes the stuff. She sampled some at a restaurant, and loved it. (Of course, this is the same girl who advocates for a salt lick in her room, so maybe it’s the salt.) Clearly, she’s got what it takes to be wealthy.
The coffee story made me curious enough to Google the words “most expensive.”
Did you know you can pay $14,000 for a pair of Manolo Blahnik alligator boots? That’s enough to make me want to hide my department store pumps under the table. If you have a little more money to spend, consider buying a New York estate. I found one listed for just $75 million.
Forbes Magazine provides lists of a lot of the world’s most expensive stuff. Oddly enough, a subscription to Forbes can be had for a mere $29.99 annually.
According to Forbes, the most expensive generally attainable champagne in the world is Krug’s Clos du Mesnil 1995, which goes for $750 per bottle (equivalent to about 21 cups of civet coffee).
Speaking of champagne, I read that the most expensive champagne in the world sold for $17,000 in 2005. I think I would have enjoyed tasting that.
The closest I’ve come to $17,000 champagne is a glass of Dom Perignon I had in Las Vegas many years ago. I had the good fortune to be young, blonde and playing craps at a table right next to a rich guy from a foreign country who was compelled to buy Dom Perignon for everybody at the table. (He later mentioned that he doesn’t pay for anything – the casino ends up footing his bills. If I’d known that before, I’d have asked for the bottle and a tall straw.)
I knew a woman who paid $17,000 for a one-of-a-kind Barbie doll in an auction. The doll wasn’t really worth $17,000; she just wanted to outbid another woman who was equally determined to have the doll. Since the money went to charity, I suppose it was all good – but I’ll bet the doll wouldn’t fetch $1,000 on eBay today.
And speaking of eBay, I discovered that you can buy seven ounces of Kopi Luwak – civet coffee – for just $6.99 from one enterprising eBay seller. Best of all, it comes “packed hygienely.”
Who can resist an offer like that?
Copyright 2007, Metropolitan News Company