Coffee That Satisfies A Discerning Civet Cat Is Excellent Indeed --- Good to the Last Dropping, Caphe Cut Chon Is Rare But Still Found in Vietnam

DAKLAK, Vietnam -- Coffee farmer Ho Hoang Yen fondly remembers one of his boyhood chores of half a century ago. With mist rolling off the hills, he would rise at dawn, trek through the lush highland wilderness, and forage beneath dewy bushes for the finest coffee beans. Mr. Yen says it has been seve...

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Published inThe Wall Street journal. Eastern edition
Main Author By Samantha Marshall
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, N.Y Dow Jones & Company Inc 17.03.1999
EditionEastern edition
Subjects
Cats
Coffee
Colonialism
Endangered & extinct species
Farmers
Feces
Restaurants
Wildlife
Vietnam
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Summary:DAKLAK, Vietnam -- Coffee farmer Ho Hoang Yen fondly remembers one of his boyhood chores of half a century ago. With mist rolling off the hills, he would rise at dawn, trek through the lush highland wilderness, and forage beneath dewy bushes for the finest coffee beans. Mr. Yen says it has been seven years since he has savored a cup of the improbable beverage, because Vietnam -- one of the world's big coffee exporters -- has been doing an injustice to one of its most instinctive coffee connoisseurs: the civet cat, a creature of the Viverridae family that looks something like a fox but is actually a cousin of the mongoose. Another reason caphe cut chon is disappearing from dinner tables: Civet cats are showing up as the main course. At the bustling Bac Map restaurant in coffee country's provincial capital, Buon Me Thuot, barbecued civet cat is a big-selling delicacy among newly rich coffee traders, says Chung Hue Bac, the proprietor. He isn't too troubled by the resultant scarcity of caphe cut chon. "I'd much rather eat the fox," he says.
ISSN:0099-9660