YOU’VE HEARD about Kung Fu Panda but what about Kung Poo Panda?
If you thought that Kung Fu Panda was a knockout, wait until you try Kung Poo Panda. According to media reports, a Chinese entrepreneur named An Yanshi is convinced he has found the key ingredient to produce the world’s most expensive tea – panda poo.
The former calligraphy teacher saw the writing on the wall and bought 11 tonnes of panda poo to fertilize a tea crop. He will only “panda” to very expensive tastes with his tea since it will cost about US$35 000 for just over a pound.
An, who tries to hype his Poo tea by dressing up like a cartoon panda, has been the butt of a lot of jokes.
An claims that it is not just the money that motivates him – it is his need to convince the world to replace chemical fertilizers with animal faeces.
An’s claim that the green tea will help people lose weight and protect them from radiation has been ridiculed by some Chinese web users, who have expressed doubts about the purported health benefits of the tea and the high asking price for the first harvest.
If China is An’s only market, in true Kung Fu Panda style, he might die Po. However, even if he fails in his mission in his home country, An can try Vietnam whose President is Nguyen Tan Dung.
He might also consider using bear excrement and call it Winnie the Poo.
Frankly, it does not matter to me what soil they grow the tea in. As far as I am concerned, whether they’re green, black, white or oolong, all teas taste like they were grown in the same cesspit.
That is why I love coffee and felt down in the mouth when a few years ago my doctor whimsically advised me to switch to tea as my hot beverage, not of choice, but of necessity.
Not that coffee does not have a poo connection as well. Those of us who scoff at Mr An’s panda poo might not like to hear about one of the most expensive coffee brands in the world.
I have it straight from the horse’s mouth that there is a Sumatran coffee that comes out of an animal’s anus. The way the coffee is made can give you grounds for serious concern.
The animal is the “civet” – native to tropical Asia and Africa, especially the tropical forests. The coffee, known as Kopi luwak or civet coffee, is made from the beans of coffee berries that have been eaten by the Asian Palm and other civets, then passed through their digestive tract where it is broken down, defecated, washed, dried, roasted, brewed and sold for US$160 per pound.
More, on some Vietnamese farms the civets are fed exclusively on beef and that both improves the taste and increases the price.
Flavour and aroma
When my daughter Marsha was an infant, and having tried and hated coffee, she asked me, many moons ago and many, many cups of Java and Sumatra earlier, why I drink it. Now, the Panda Poo and Civet brew would put her off even more. The reason is probably the caffeine jolt, but the answer is the flavour reinforced by the aroma.
There is no smell as pleasant, and nothing that Dior or Davidoff can produce, as freshly brewed coffee. There is no taste like coffee. Of course it helps (and research has shown) that drinking between two to four coffees a day is linked to a reduced risk of heart disease.
Coffee (plus exercise) is supposed to help you ward off skin cancer and is better than drinking sunblock. A study by neuroscientists at the University of Lisbon showed that drinking coffee can help to prevent the neural degeneration associated with brain disorders and aging.
An Iowa study showed that women who drank one to three cups of java a day reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease by 24 per cent.
Drinking coffee lowers the risk of stroke by 19 per cent among women, according to a 2009 Harvard Medical School study that tracked the coffee habits and stroke occurrences among 83 000 American women for nearly a quarter century.
Other recent studies have shown that coffee protects against certain brain tumours, endometrial cancer and advanced prostate cancer.
The fact is that there is a lot more that I can tell you about coffee but my hands are shaking so much that I have to stop now and head for the percolator.
• Tony Deyal was last seen saying that trembling hands are not the only symptom of a coffee habit. There was a man who complained to his doctor that every time he took a sip of his coffee he felt a stabbing pain on his face. “Take the spoon out of the cup,” replied the doctor.
