100 Things To Do You’ve Never Heard Of #099 They make the coffee how?!

This could be the world’s most bizarre drink. The Herveys Range Heritage Tea Rooms near Cairns, operating from the Eureka Hotel, the oldest building in north Queensland, is the only café in the country that sells Kopi Luwak. And since it’s the world’s rarest coffee blend, it costs $50 per cup. Let’s talk you through it: The beans are harvested in Indonesia on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi. But they’re not, and this is the important part, simply plucked from coffee plants. Oh no. They’re collected from the poo of the Common Palm Civet, or Luwak, a catlike animal that eats the ripe coffee cherries but can’t digest the beans. While in the Luwak’s digestive system, they pass through a unique fermentation process that no-one’s really game to get to the bottom of (ha!), but we’re told it all ends up in a brew so sensational that it commonly sells for $1250 a kilo! Don’t forget to also try their yummy scones and apple pie, as well as their tours through five of the old mining tunnels of the Greenvale line and the nearby forest that’s home to the Gulbaru Gecko, which was only newly discovered in 2005.

WHERE // The Herveys Range Heritage Tea Rooms are 30min out of Townsville. Call (07) 4778 0199 or check out www.heritagetearooms.com.au for more info.

DID YOU KNOW? // In 2006, the Herveys Range Heritage Tea Rooms sold fully two percent of the entire world supply of Kopi Luwak coffee. People just can’t seem to resist trying the stuff.