Ca Phe Chon, or Weasel Poop Coffee
If you know me, you know how much I love coffee. I never drank the stuff until I married my husband, but now I’m quite addicted. I don’t dare start a day without it. Thus, you can imagine my excitement when, on page 384 of the Lonely Planet Vietnam (2009), I saw a box describing the famous ‘weasel coffee,’ or, in Mishelle Terms, Weasel Poop Coffee. If you’ve ever seen the movie The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, you might remember that JN loved this coffee until MF informed him where it really came from. They feed the beans to weasels first, and they poop them out, and some chemical process happens in the digestion to make it ‘absolutely amazing.’
Well, I had to have a kilo to take home to my husband!
Nguyen Thi had to look far and wide for this stuff—it wasn’t as easy to find as I had at first thought. Not only that, but it was expensive!!! Generally, it runs about 500,000 vnd a kilo, which is about $30. Well, we found a little shop in District 10 that sells it wholesale for 300,000 vnd a kilo. The woman’s family has a farm in the highlands near the mountains. I was her first American customer. The name of the shop is Tra- Ca Phe Nguyen Phat, located at 597 Le Hong Phong, Quan 10. Phone is 08-38345086.
I took a ton of pictures, and when I told her that I was putting her up on my blog, she gave me a couple of gifts—two small bags of ca phe chon beans!!!!!
Seriously, if you want these beans, take the taxi here. It ran me about 50,000 vnd for the taxi to get here, and it was so worth taking the time to find the place!
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