The coffee is highly prized for its smooth flavor and bitterless aftertaste, sometimes fetching well over $200 a pound online. Indonesia’s top Islamic body declared Tuesday that Muslims can drink civet coffee — the world’s most expensive coffee, which is extracted from the dung of civet cats.
A preacher recently suggested the beverage might not be “halal” — or religiously approved — because its provenance makes it unclean. But after a long discussion Tuesday, the influential Indonesian Ulema Council said that the coffee, known locally as Kopi Luwak, could be consumed as long as the beans were washed.
Kopi Luwak, which takes it name from the Indonesian word for civets, is made from hard beans that have been eaten by the nocturnal critters and then fermented in their stomachs before being pooped out and roasted. Civet cats are mongoose-like animals.
In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Kopi Luwak is produced in the main Java island, Sumatra and Sulawesi. It is also found under different names elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Only 1,000 pounds are said to be produced annually worldwide.
The Ulema Council has often issued fatwas, or edicts, including several controversial rulings against smoking and yoga. Its edicts are not legally binding, but many devout Muslims abide by them. I will stick to Tim Horton’s and Starbucks, thanks.
- From the yucky files! A Colorado family and an Arizona nonprofit are fighting in court over who gets the head of a woman who died this month, along with a $50,000 annuity she left behind.
- Police in Georgia say a 23-year-old man grabbed a baseball bat inside of a Walmart store on Wednesday and smashed 29 flat-screen televisions. I am guessing anger management courses will be part of his sentence.
- A strip club in Ohio has raised $1,000 for Haitian earthquake relief during what was billed as “Lap dances for Haiti. Ummm, is that legal?
- Police say a man who stuffed 75 bottles of body lotion in his pants couldn’t slip away from authorities, hampered by slacks that were nearly bursting at the seams. Dry skin I guess?
Here is a very funny news report from over at theOnion which pokes fun at the voilence in todays video games. My favorite quote is “….kids need to learn how to collect the morning dew in human skulls for drinking water.”
It seems an English Lord was having a bit of fun on his roof top helipad. He painted a huge pecker there to amuse his friends and family when he flew them to the countryside estate. Now Google earth has made it public and the UK Government has threatened to sue him if it is not removed.
A Mesa dad turned on the family clothes dryer with his son still inside — and he did it on purpose, cops say. The 1-year-old boy had been sitting inside the dryer with the door open, which the young family thought was “cute,” according to a Mesa police news release. When the boy’s mother left the laundry area to grab a camera, the boy’s father — 19-year-old Jose Rocha (pictured) — closed the dryer door and turned the appliance on, police say.
The kid began screaming and was soon rescued, suffering a few bumps and bruises. Family members were so outraged that they called the cops. Rocha was booked into jail on suspicion of child abuse. Good job that his own family turned him in, no doubt the guy is a psycho!
