London's Peter Jones department store is offering discerning customers the chance to stump £50 a pop to taste Caffé Raro - an exotic blend of Jamaican Blue Mountain and Kupi Luwak beans, the latter having passed through the digestive tract of jungle cats.

According to the Telegraph, Kupi Luwak beans are eaten by Indonesian civet cats (known to science as Paradoxurus, or locally "Luwak") and subsequently "harvested" from their faeces. A spokesman for Italian coffee outfit De Longhi, which markets the blend, explained: "It is in high demand from coffee aficionados. They will relish the chance to buy such a rare coffee. After all, only 200kg of Kupi Luwak coffee is produced each year."

Joe Teixeira, head of catering at the department store, chipped in with: "Peter Jones customers are more concerned with unique experiences and an appetite for the weird and the wonderful, whatever the expense. The fact the coffee includes a bean ingested by Indonesian civet cats gives them an experience they couldn't get anywhere else in the world."

You can decide for yourselves just how unique the Caffé Raro experience is at the Peter Jones Espresso Bar, or buy a 100g pack of the blend for later consumption - also for £50.

The promotion runs until the end of the month, and all proceeds will be donated to Macmillan Cancer Support. ®

Bootnote

Kupi Luwak is rated as the world's most expensive coffee. It's described here as outrageously so, at "around $450 or more" per pound.

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