New Delhi: Someone's trash is another's treasure. What Formosan rock monkeys spit in Taiwan is quickly becoming a specialty among coffee connoisseurs.
And like many other things, this delicious discovery also happened by accident.
Liao Jingdong, who has been a coffee farmer for 30 years, one day decided to roast beans which the monkeys spat out, and discovered a unique, sweeter flavour and a vanilla-like scent.
"They pick the reddest fruits to eat, and spit out the seeds. They cannot swallow the beans because that may cause indigestion," says Liao.
Liao's farm produces about 300 kilograms of coffee beans annually, which yields around 30 per cent of their earnings. Visitors from various parts of Taiwan gather here to taste their rare delicacy.
It takes two weeks to have the coffee beans unshelled, sun dried, and roasted, but for coffee-lovers like Wang Chihming, it's worth the wait.
"Personally, I like black coffee because that's the original taste, plus it's got a nice after taste, that's really good," says he.
And if you want to taste this unique coffee, it does come at a price. One pound costs close to $60 (US dollars). The other alternative could be to ape Liao and get a monkey to do the job for you.
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