Nevada City, CA — A Nevada City startup is capitalizing on the latest coffee dung coffee frenzy with a new and innovative twist: she’s going to be using coffee beans processed through the human digestive tract. Over the past few years, coffee connoisseurs have traveled the world to sample exotic “dung coffees” costing as much as $70 per cup and whole, dung-processed beans costing as much as $1000/pound. The most popular of these varieties are from the poop of Asian civet cats and elephants. It’s regarded as the most expensive coffee in the world.
Long-time Nevada City resident, entrepreneur and coffee aficionado Sarah Benfer said she got the idea after spending a sabbatical traveling across Thailand. Ms. Benfer was a successful independent coffee buyer for several years, supplying green coffee not only to local roasters, but also to many large national chains such as Starbucks and Peet’s Coffee. Having grown tired of being a distributor, she decided to settle down in her hometown of Nevada City, CA and open her own coffee roasting business.
“I know coffee,” said Ms. Benfer out in front of her Commercial Street storefront which is currently under construction. “Before I decided to open here, I was going to make a documentary about my travels. I even started one of those crowd sourcing accounts. You know, gofundme.com? Anyhow, That didn’t work out the way I wanted it, so I took those funds I decided to use them open Kopi Luwak [the name of her coffee business], except instead of using civet processed beans, I’m working with several celebrities to produce my own unique brand of human-digested coffee.”
According to Ms. Benfer, she’s working with several celebrities who will ingest as much as 1 pound of whole, green coffee beans, “digest” them through their gastrointestinal tract, and then ship their subsequent stools to her Nevada City roasting shop for processing.
“I can’t tell you everyone who’s involved, as that’s with the lawyers,” continued Ms. Benfer. “But I can tell you that David Spade will be part of what we’re calling our ‘butt roast’ team. We’re calling it ‘The Joe Dirt Blend.’ And the best part of this, is a portion of the profits will got to various non-profit causes around Nevada County.”
When asked how much a 1 pound of David Spade ‘butt roasted” coffee will cost, Ms. Benfer didn’t hesitate to share.
“Well, it’s obviously a premium coffee, and rare to boot. I mean, how much coffee can David Spade or any other celebrity eat in a day? Plus there’s all the processing too. Let’s just say a cup of that coffee is going to run between $40 and $50. If I can get George Clooney on-board, we’re talking over $100 a cup.”
Kopi Luwak is scheduled to open sometime in early 2017. Sarah Benfer’s documentary, which is on hold might begin filming once she is running a profit margin.
