In the world of exploiting animals for obscenely priced exotic coffees, elephants are le dernier cri! The Wall Street Journal has published this harrowing real-life frightmare of a report from Bangkok, where a rag-tag group of elephants are being force-fed coffee cherries for human profit. Much like the pointlessly abused civet cat, these poor animal’s waste is then farmed, processed, and roasted into musty coffee sold at a ghastly mark-up – “around $35 for a four-cup serving”, according to the WSJ. Also, the company doing the elephant poop selling is called “Black Ivory Coffee Co.” You’d think we were making this up for Halloween, except we totally aren’t.
This disgusting, abhorrent elephant con has another layer of ghoulishness: a portion of the proceeds go to charity! Well, charity for themselves, to care for the elephants. WSJ explains:
Black Ivory will put 8% of sales revenues back into the elephant foundation, helping fund veterinary care.
Those elephants are going to need a lot of veterinary care after being force fed countless pounds of cherry. Right? Wrong! WSJ goes on:
The sanctuary says that the eating the coffee berries wonโt harm the elephants, since the caffeine wonโt be extracted in the elephantsโ stomach. The coffee bean itself acts as a protective shell, stopping any caffeine from getting to the elephant, says John Roberts, the director of the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation.
LIES! Caffeine is found all over the coffee plant. See: Dancing Goats. We hope that this is all just a Halloween nightmare and we’ll wake up tomorrow and find out it was an ill-timed and elaborate April Fools joke.
