COFFEE ANYONE?

 

COFFEE ANYONE?

(Excerpted from Jefferson’s Tears, pgs. 56-59)

Another couple of soldiers had drawn near to listen to the conversation. One of them said, “I never knew the Bible had all this interesting stuff in it!” 

“Neither did I,” replied the chaplain. “Neither did I until I started reading it in my early thirties and got converted.”

“Padre, can you get me one of those camouflage Bibles?” said one soldier.

“Me too?” said another. “I’d be glad to,” responded the chaplain as he took another sip of his coffee. He looked at his watch. He had a meeting to attend soon, so he was of two minds whether to introduce the new subject. But, because he was enjoying the present company, he went for it.

“We all like coffee, right?”

The other three men nodded in agreement.

“Well, in the spirit of entrepreneurialism, or you could say that here’s a Scotsman on the make, I’d like to pour out for you a cupful, nay, an overflowing mugful of aromatic success. It really is time for you guys to wake up and smell the coffee! Yeah, yeah, it may be true that coffee always smells better than it tastes. However, money never disappoints.” The chaplain was talking tongue in cheek while at the same time being half serious. His audience was all ears, even if a little bewildered. So he went on. “What’s my bottom line? Friends, people are willing to pay up to $80 for a cup of something found in soiled kitty litter. I kid you not. ‘Kopi luwak’ is the seeds of coffee berries that have been eaten and then defecated by the Asian palm civet. A civet is a cat-like beastie, a toddy-cat that you find in places like Sumatra, Bali, and the Philippines. Civet coffee comes from cat poo — well, the beans come from cat poo!”

Each of the men, including the chaplain, instinctively looked into his coffee cup. All except Jefferson screwed up their faces as they contemplated the process for making civet coffee.

“Are you getting a whiff of where we can go with this?” continued the chaplain. “Think about it. If coffee beans that have been passed through a cat’s digestive system can entice people to part with ultra-bucks for a cup of joe, then so will the same beans passed through a more attractive animal — such as a koala or a kangaroo, or maybe a bird such as the kookaburra or a cassowary.”

The chaplain could see that the others were enjoying his little sales pitch. They sat there wondering how to get a kangaroo or a koala to eat coffee beans.

“Now here’s the rub: There was a coffee expert who did a comparison between the same beans, some of which had passed through the intestines of the cat-like critter and some that hadn’t. He said that clearly the luwak coffee sold for its story, and not for the superior quality of coffee. He said the cat-poo coffee tasted stale and lifeless, something like soggy petrified dinosaur dung. I don’t know how he knows what petrified dinosaur doo-doos taste like. Anyway, it is more than clear that people buy this kind of coffee more for the novelty than the taste.” The chaplain drained his coffee cup as he gave his audience time to digest his words, then he went on, “Did you get that? It’s not about the actual taste. It’s about the story, the novelty. Oh, pennies from heaven! It’s raining gold doubloons! Your (coffee) cup runneth over! Are you hearing the ringing of tills? Kerching. Are you smelling the sweet smell of financial success? Try saying it slowly with meaning, Kangaroo Coffee, Koala Coffee, Kookaburra Coffee, Cassowary Coffee!”

“How about Crocodile Coffee?” added one of the others.

“Bottom line?” asked the chaplain. “The bottom line is that we can make big bucks by using Australian iconic birds and animals to help us sell coffee to the coffee-craving crowd. For the quality is more in the story than the coffee bean. Think about it: novelty needs no salesman.”

“Everyone would be happy. Animal lovers? Help us save the endangered koala and cassowary! Job hunters? Come work in our coffee plantation/animal farm! Coffee lovers? Would you like to step into the Outback? Smell the desert breeze? Bound across the plains? Climb a gum tree? Laugh among the treetops? Run through the bush? Then drink a cup of Australia!

“Good idea or what? Something to think about over your next cup of coffee? Let me know. And just remember that I thought of it first!”

At that he thanked Jefferson for the coffee and excused himself, saying that he’d return and continue the conversation some other time. The others looked at each other as if they were wondering what had just happened. They weren’t sure whether to laugh or to start making plans to start an exotic coffee business.

The chaplain chuckled to himself as he walked away. He had had a bit of fun. However, he had not gotten very far when he had to run for cover. The “War Games” had suddenly come to the camp and the rat-a-tat-tat of blank ammunition could be heard as the defenders defended the little camp against the attackers. And it was getting closer …