Monkey business yields gourmet Taiwan coffee

Coffee connoisseurs are going ape for a rare brew that Taiwanese farmers are producing with the help of monkeys.

Formosan rock monkeys have long been a scourge to coffee farmers in Taiwan's mountains because they eat the ripe berries and spit out the seeds.

But now, the farmers are collecting these half-chewed seeds and roasting them to produce a coffee that is being brewed all over the island.



"The monkeys pick the reddest fruits to eat, and spit out the seeds. They cannot swallow them because that may cause indigestion," said Liao Ching-tung, a coffee farmer for 30 years who has recently taken up roasting the regurgitated seeds.

Liao says the discarded seeds yield a sweeter coffee with a vanilla-like scent, which sells for about $56 a pound (450 grams).

"I like coffee it's got a nice aftertaste, that's really good," said Wang.

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