#431 – cat poop cookies

Kopi Luwak (a.k.a. cat poop coffee) is the most expensive coffee in the world. It's the only coffee bean that's ingested by Asian civets and harvested from their droppings. Apparently something in cat bellies makes coffee delicious. More smart people can explain it better than me. Nobody can explain why the cookies come out of Manuel fully formed.

61 thoughts on “#431 – cat poop cookies

  1. There's a cheese like this too, or maybe that was just in that comic with the frog that had sunglasses.

    1. that's a Sardinian cheese called cazu marzu. It's not poop cheese, but it is infested with live "cheese maggots". They jump. I'm not kidding!

      1. That can not be sanitary…Dose Italy have a lax health department or something?

        1. It's supposedly outlawed and only available on the black market, but all the easily available information on it is from unsourced articles or user-edited wikis so I'd take the information you get about it with a grain of salt.

        2. http://www.ilovecheese.co.uk/casu-marzu-worlds-da

          Banned on multiple levels….

          It's worth noting that "cheese mites" are involved in making several sorts of cheese, but those are invisibly small, and not particularly dangerous.

        3. This series of comments has actually made me feel sick. =/

    2. Only difference is that that maggot cheese can kill you if you eat it! Sometimes you eat the maggots and they bore through your intestinal tract! GROOOSS this cat poop coffee is much more tame.

      1. You could, if you were that way inclined say that the cat poop cookies are far more domesticated.

        x

  2. Ewww, Kopi Luwak reference. XD I love Octopus Pie.

  3. This is absolutely hilarious. How did this even happen?!

    Never tell! I hope you never reveal the sequence of events that caused this.

  4. "Civet Cat" is actually a misnomer. Civets are not felines.

    1. I was going to say this! I came here JUST to say this! You're a hero — thanks for saving me from my own animal OCD.

  5. What bothers me the most is that Hanna still gave him the cat poop cookies. She brought this on herself!

  6. Cat poop cookies. As someone who cleans the household cat poop, this product scares me.

  7. Hanna seems to be getting her ass handed to her a lot these days. Not that her plans ever work (getting Will and Eve together, keeping Will and Eve apart…) but her failures were once greeted with a bohemian panache rather than disgruntled resentment. I hope she's not growing up 🙁

  8. Oooh! Oooh! Question!

    How does one pronounce "Puget Sean?"

    1. I always said it like "Poo-Get Sean".

    2. AlmostLiterally

      And I say 'Pudge-Et Sean'.

      Whenever I don't know, I just try to think of the funniest possible pronunciation and roll with it. That way, if I'm right, I'm right. If I'm wrong, people will probably think I was joking and not actually wrong. Yes, I'd rather be known for lame jokes than for being wrong. Sue me.

      However, according to that philosophy, Poo-Get Sean is clearly the winner here.

      1. It's "Pew-Jet", like the Puget Sound, in Seattle. I'm guessing that's maybe where he's from???

        1. Exactly! Remember, he “single-handedly brought grunge back” (something like that; I’m paraphrasing), so his embodiment of grunge culture includes his affiliation with the grunge capital, Seattle, hence the punny name.

    3. I always assumed it was "Pyoo-jet," like the region in Washington. (Puget Sound?)

    4. SparklingMangos

      P-you ( like pee-you without the ee) – jet

      Like "puget sound".

    5. Like "Puget Sound" but with Sean at the end.

    6. I assume it patterns off of "Puget Sound", and we locals say, "Pyoo-jit."

      1. Somehow all of the ore comments didn't appear until after I submitted. Oh, well!

        1. I am from the Seattle area, and I concur. Pyoo-jit Sound.

          Next text: try saying Puyallup.

        2. Hush, you. How are we supposed to filter out Californians without mispronunciations of Puyallup and Sequim?

        3. That's okay, meanwhile the Californians (well, the Angelenos anyway) are filtering you out with "Sepulveda" and "Figueroa." (And occasionally La Cienega… hint, it's NOT Italian.)

        4. “Pyew-allup.” “Skwim.” I personally like Okanagan and Kootenai. Gotta love Washington.

  9. I went with pyoo-jet

  10. THE FUKKEN SHIT

    1. yes yes yes

      you win…something. internets?

    2. Glad SOMEONE said this! The Olly Doggie has some competition now!

  11. I'm confused (not about Kopi Luwak, I've had it) – with these cookies, would you wash your hands, eat them and then wash your hands _again_?

    or

    Drink strong clove tea with them?

    Oh, and when you think about Kopi Luwak, it's fermentation, really – most tea is fermented to release more flavour, too. Just not in an animals' intestines. But hey, you pour hot water on already roasted beans, it's all good!

    1. Okay, you've had it… is it really SO much better as to be worth 30x the price per cup?

  12. Joe the coffee shop guy reminds me of Joseph from the Scott Pilgrim books. I think its the eye brow/ beard combo.

  13. hahahahaha! i'm sick at home and almost peed my pants from this page – ran to the bathroom! the people protesting including the unlikely old dude -AND the cat poop illustration- so hilarious!

  14. Civets are highly-evolved to eat only the best coffee beans (if they have a choice), so that helps. It means that rather than getting whatever thousands of beans were pulled from the plans, you're only getting the best. Then, apparently something in their digestive enzymes burns off some of the acidity of the coffee. The bean itself (which I think is technically a seed) is largely indigestible, so poop-poop!

    Sad people who hate their jobs collect the poop, wash it, and then send the bean on for processing!

  15. Between this and that Chinese 100-year old egg… exotic gastronomy is pretty weird. 😐

    1. A century egg isn't actually 100 years old, although the preserving process can take up to a few months.

      1. A few months is already a few months too many.

  16. That cat in the last panel has an oddly human nose

  17. Nice "fuck my life" in the last panel. Puget Sean's not a happy camper in this coffeeshop.

  18. I love how Sean is just working away grumpily at his moleskine, like a bothersome child told to sit in a corner and draw.

  19. Wouldn't this be unsanitary? I know you said somewhere they make coffee out of cat shit but…..even that has to be disgusting and unhealthy to eat.

    1. Actually, the coffee is not unsanitary or any more unhealthy. The beans are of course washed clean, then dried and roasted. The roasting process would kill any nasty microbes. And of course it goes through the typical coffee routine of being ground and doused in very hot water.

    2. Coffee Beans – they are washed, dried and roasted before ANYONE makes coffee with them.

      Boiling Water (and hotter, for espresso) – it hits the beans to make the coffee.

      For the squeamish who are disturbed by this idea, did you ever wonder how much 'foreign content' is allowed in processed foods (say, breakfast cereals) without having to be included in the ingredients?

      Every factory will do its best, but moths, flies and cockroaches often find a way in.

      It's not the coffee I'd worry about ; )

      1. Water for espresso shouldn’t be above boiling, even for a really dark roast…. this is one of the reasons people make really bad coffee with steam driven espresso machines, or improper technique if they’re actually a barista – HX machines leave some above-boiling water in the group if they aren’t flushed before the shot is pulled, and the resulting sludge is unfit for a pig’s trough. In fact, the less intensely roasted the coffee is, the lower temperature you want your brewing water, to minimize the transfer of carboxylic acids from the bean into the cup, and this goes for any brewing method…

  20. Mikeller makes what is supposed to be a fantastic beer w the civet beans. I just bought a bottle lady week. Haven't tried it yet. Weird!

    1. Is it Lady Week already!? I haven't stocked up yet!

      To the Beer Store®!

  21. As I was reading this it was slowly dawning on me what you might be referring to, a friend of mine is obsessed with the idea of buying some Kopi Luwak at some point. The protesters are insanely funny.

  22. What.

    The hell.

  23. Hey Meredith, I'd just like to say thanks for giving me 431 pieces of procrastination material, I've enjoyed reading OP for the last couple of days instead of writing my dissertation. Keep up the good work!

  24. Any chance of getting "Bring Back Cat Poop Cookies" shirts in the store? I'd wear one with pride.

    1. Meredith, please do this. Pleeeease…

  25. man, I couldn't have been more wrong with the way I pronounce "Puget Sean". I thought the first part was French, with a silent "T". I said "Pooshey" . Then I said "Seen" instead of "Shawn".

  26. But….HOW do so many people know that the cookies were shat out of a cat?? Can't speak for anybody else, but *I* wouldn't whisper a word of that to anybody. Then again, I wouldn't sell cat-shat cookies in the first place, so there you go.

  27. If you make that a real t-shirt, I will really buy it with real money.

  28. I have to ask, Meredith; do you listen to Kevin Smith's SModcast? Because he and Scott Mosier were *just* talking about the poo coffee on their last episode.

  29. Ok I dunno what gives but… I can’t see the comic!!! no matter what I do !?!

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