The ‘je ne sais quoi’ that gives the famous Black Ivory coffee its smooth, chocolatey flavor can be hidden… in the guts of the largest land animals on Earth.
A new study, recently in Scientific Reports and which affected the microorganisms that live in the intestines of Asian elephants (The biggest elephant), revealed that certain groups of bacteria are likely breaking down compounds that would otherwise make coffee bitter.
As noted by , Black Ivory coffee is among the most expensive coffees in the world, leaving kopi luwak — coffee digested by civets (which are not, in fact, cats) — far behind.
AND produced only in an elephant sanctuary in Thailandwhere some of these animals are fed unprocessed coffee cherries. Later, sanctuary staff collect the digested coffee beans from the elephants’ feces, clean them and roast them for human consumption. Coffee is known for its flavor, often described as smooth and chocolatey.
After science discovered that civet gut bacteria may play a role in the flavor of kopi luwak, researchers wanted to know whether a similar mechanism was helping to shape the flavor profile of Black Ivory coffee.
The new study does not analyze coffee beans, but looks directly at elephant feces to make a survey of intestinal microorganisms.
Samples were collected from six elephants at the sanctuary — three that had eaten coffee cherries and three that had not, serving as a control group.
The only difference in their diets was a snack given to the coffee-consuming elephants, consisting of bananas, coffee cherries and rice bran. In other words, if there were any difference in the intestinal microbiome, it would most likely be due to this additional snack.
The science behind coffee
The bitterness in coffee comes, in part, from a compound called pectinwhich is found in the cell walls of plants, as well as cellulose. During the roasting process, pectin and cellulose break down into bitter-tasting compounds.
In this study, elephant intestines were found to have the complete set of tools needed to break down pectins and cellulose.
As Science Alter details, when sequencing the stool samples, it was discovered that the elephants that digested coffee had a much higher proportion of intestinal microorganisms involved in the breakdown of pectin and cellulose. Furthermore, some of the bacterial species were not found at all in the control group.
New analysis of elephant microbiomes suggests that partial digestion of coffee cherries helps remove the parts of the coffee beans that become bitter during roasting, resulting in a much more delicious flavor profile.
