Vietnam Food Weasel Coffee

Yes, really from a weasel. Eaten, digested and, well, you know …. And yes, really, really yum. It is thick, rich and has a hint of chocolate flavor.
Frankly, we don’t care whose intestinal tract this stuff may or may not have come from. The cups we had in Hanoi and the ones we have brewed since coming home are the best coffee, hands down, we’ve had in our lives.
The story goes like this:  in the early 18th century the Dutch established coffee plantations in Indonesia. But the Dutch wouldn’t let the locals pick coffee fruits for their own use. Weasels loved the berries and left the beans undigested in their droppings. The Dutch didn’t care what the locals did with the weasel glop so, voila, a new coffe was born.
According to those who have studied all of this, the digestive enzymes ferment the beans and break down the proteins, resulting in more amino acids. And since the flavor of coffee depends a lot on its proteins and amino acids, the theory is that this shift results in the coffee’s unique, mild but also smoky, chocolatey flavor.
The beans are thoroughly washed, dried and roasted. And yes, some paranoid North American scientist (who else?) tested the stuff for harmful bacteria and found none of any consequence.
All the guide books say the real stuff is breathtakingly expensive … one Philippine website sells it for $890 a kilo. And, of course, there are imitations, even by a company in Florida, Coffee Premiro (www.coffeeprimero.com) which peddles its version for $16 a pound. Trung Nguyên Coffee Company (www.trung-nguyen-online.co.uk/trungnguyen.html)  in Vietnam does the same, proudly bragging about how it has duplicated the unique weasel gut taste.
The coffee in Vietnam is called “cafe chon,” after the Vietnamese word (chon) for weasel. There, it is priced according to the percentage of weasel coffee, from #1 (80 percent) to #6 (30 percent) or full on chon (100 percent). Should you be in Hanoi, we got our stach from Ca Phe Gia Truyen Kim Lai in Hanoi’s Old Quarter.

Through what has to be an all time coincidence (six degrees of separation and all that), I happened to be visting not only Florida but Gainesville a month after Vietnam. So I called Ken Barr, CEO of Coffee Primero who graciously spent hours letting me taste his coffee and a bit of our Viet stuff.

To do this right, you have to make the coffee the Vietnamese way, either using one of their tiny silver cups that are like a single serving French press or an actual French press, where you put the coffee on the bottom of the glass pot, let it steep for a few minutes, then drop a sieved plunger on the grounds. A generous serving of sweetened condensed milk goes on the bottom of your cup.

Ken actually makes 10 versions of his “cat” coffee … his replication of the weasel brew … but only sells three of them. What I did discover was you have to make his coffee REAL strong but it does come close.

 He also fingered, sniffed then ground my own beans. So did we get the real thing for $20 a pound? At first, he said, most likely not since the beans I bought in Vietnam are of irregular size and include (gasp!) husks … a huge no no.

 But then he tasted my coffee and his eyebrows rose.

 ”Huh! No bitterness.”

So maybe I got Vietnam’s version of weasel rejects? The real stuff but ugly beans not fit for export?

“I think you’re on to something there,” he replied.

Oh heck, who cares. My Viet coffee is still beyond fantastic. I think I hear my French press calling me right now, as a matter of fact.

1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup + 1 tsp ground weasel coffee
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream.

Using 1/2 C coffee grounds, make coffee with two cups boiling water and let brew at least five minutes. Put entire can of condensed milk into mixing bowl. Add one cup of brewed coffee to the milk in the mixing bowl. Then add half a cup of cream and stir well. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator for two to three hours, then pour into ice cream machine with one extra teaspoon of ground coffee.
If you do not have a machine, add the teaspoonful of ground coffee to the chilled mixture, stir well, then freeze. Remove the bowl from the freezer once every hour and whisk the mixture to prevent ice-crystals forming. You will probably need to do this about 5-6 times. This works nearly as well as using a machine but you’ve got to remember to whisk it!

To serve, soften the ice-cream slightly by putting it in the fridge for 30 minutes (but never refreeze melted ice-cream).