World’s most expensive tea — fertilized with panda poo?
We’ve heard of bird-poo facials, but panda-poo tea? Really?
One wildlife expert has a patent for just that. An Yanshi, a college lecturer at the Sinchuan Univerisity in China, believes his tea can prevent cancer — because it’s fertilized with panda droppings.
"Pandas have a very poor digestive system and only absorb about 30 per cent of everything they eat. That means their excrement is rich in fibres and nutrients," he told Chinese website Scol.com.cn.
"It has a mature, nutty taste and a very distinctive aroma while it's brewing."
Yanshi’s tea will be the world’s most expensive, costing up to $80,000 per kilogram, once his first batch is ready for sale.
[See also: What to avoid at Tim Hortons]
We already know that tea is good for us. But Yanshi insists that the panda’s bamboo diet will offer us boosted health benefits.
"Just like green tea, bamboo contains an element that can prevent cancer, and enhance green tea's anti-cancer effects, if it is used as fertilizer for the tea," he said.
In anticipation of manufacturing his brew, Yanshi has already collected around 5 tonnes of panda excrement which, Gawker remarks, “looks like stuffed grape leaves.”
Side note: the average adult panda produces about 20 kilograms of feces a day.
Coffee-drinkers with expensive tastes aren’t new to the “poop” story. The famous Kopi Luwak coffee is the world’s most expensive one. Instead of the beans being fertilized in excrement, they are passed through the digestive system of the Asian Palm Civit cat.
Oh, and now there’s “weasel coffee,” too.
Anyone fancy a cuppa?
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