Did you know that firing rockets into the sky is a merit-making ceremony practiced by ethnic Lao people throughout much of northeastern Thailand?
This celebration is a call for rain and a celebration of fertility that typically includes music and dance performances, competitive processions of floats, musicians and dancers, and competitive firing of home-made rockets.
Forget Kopi Luwak. Beans pooped by elephants make a far tastier cup of bitter-free coffee.
In the lush hills of northern Thailand, a herd of 20 elephants is excreting some of the world’s most expensive coffee. Trumpeted as earthy in flavour and smooth on the palate, the exotic new brew is made from beans eaten by Thai elephants and plucked a day later from their dung. A gut reaction inside the elephant creates what its founder calls the coffee’s unique taste.
In the misty mountains where Thailand meets Laos and Myanmar, the coffee’s creator cites biology and scientific research to answer the basic question: Why elephants? When an elephant eats coffee, its stomach acid breaks down the protein found in coffee, which is a key factor in bitterness, said Blake Dinkin, who has spent more than £200,000 developing the coffee. You end up with a cup that’s very smooth without the bitterness of regular coffee.
The process is labour intensive, as pure Arabica beans are hand-picked by hill-tribe women from a small mountain estate. The coffee cherries are mixed together with fruit and rice before being fed to the elephants. Once the elephants do their business, the wives of elephant mahouts collect the dung to break it open and pick out the coffee. After a thorough washing, the coffee cherries are processed to extract the beans, which are then sent to a gourmet roaster in Bangkok.
The result is similar to Kopi Luwak, but the elephants’ massive stomach provides a bonus. Think of the elephant as the animal kingdom’s equivalent of a slow cooker. It takes between 15-30 hours to digest the beans, which stew together with bananas, sugar cane and other ingredients in the elephant’s vegetarian diet to infuse unique earthy and fruity flavours, said Blake Dinkin, the 42-year-old Canadian, who has a background in civet coffee.
As for the coffee’s inflated price, Dinkin half-joked that elephants are highly inefficient workers. It takes 33 kilograms of raw coffee cherries to produce one kilogram of elephant dung coffee. The majority of beans get chewed up, broken, or lost in tall grass after being excreted.
Luang Pu Nenkham Chattigo, the flamboyant abbot of Khantitham Forest Monastery has attracted attention ever since a video of him flying on a private jet, while wearing aviator sunglasses and carrying a Louis Vuitton bag went viral.
Buddhist monks are supposed to stay celibate. However the 34-year-old abbot of the Khantitham Forest Monastery who has fathered 2 children is apparently married to a woman named Yupinpraethong Janthawa, and has allegedly had relationships with 8 other women.
The abbot was accused of being a fake monk and of committing fraud by wearing monk’s robes he is not entitled to. Posing and dressing as a monk is a criminal offence in Thailand.
The complaint was filed at Bangkok’s Criminal Court by Luang Pu Buddha Isara, the abbot of another monastery.
The cleric is now the subject of a joint investigation by the DSI and the Office of National Buddhism, which oversees Thailand’s 200,000 monks.
He is also at the centre of a money-laundering investigation.
Police Colonel Pong-in Intarakhao claim the abbot and his associates had 41 bank accounts, mostly in his name, and that he is believed to own two houses and 13 cars and motorbikes. Much of the cash in the accounts is believed to have come from public donations to his monastery in the northeastern province of Si Saket.
While scandals involving monks taking drugs, gambling and driving around in expensive cars are not uncommon, the extent of Luang Pu Nenkham’s alleged misdeeds has shocked Thailand, which has the world’s largest Buddhist population.
The abbot, who claims to have walked on water, is believed to be travelling in Europe.
Did you know that firing rockets into the sky is a…
Did you know that firing rockets into the sky is a merit-making ceremony practiced by ethnic Lao people throughout much of northeastern Thailand?
This celebration is a call for rain and a celebration of fertility that typically includes music and dance performances, competitive processions of floats, musicians and dancers, and competitive firing of home-made rockets.
Would you pay US $1,100 for a kilogram of elephant dung coffee?
Forget Kopi Luwak. Beans pooped by elephants make a far tastier cup of bitter-free coffee.
In the lush hills of northern Thailand, a herd of 20 elephants is excreting some of the world’s most expensive coffee. Trumpeted as earthy in flavour and smooth on the palate, the exotic new brew is made from beans eaten by Thai elephants and plucked a day later from their dung. A gut reaction inside the elephant creates what its founder calls the coffee’s unique taste.
In the misty mountains where Thailand meets Laos and Myanmar, the coffee’s creator cites biology and scientific research to answer the basic question: Why elephants? When an elephant eats coffee, its stomach acid breaks down the protein found in coffee, which is a key factor in bitterness, said Blake Dinkin, who has spent more than £200,000 developing the coffee. You end up with a cup that’s very smooth without the bitterness of regular coffee.
The process is labour intensive, as pure Arabica beans are hand-picked by hill-tribe women from a small mountain estate. The coffee cherries are mixed together with fruit and rice before being fed to the elephants. Once the elephants do their business, the wives of elephant mahouts collect the dung to break it open and pick out the coffee. After a thorough washing, the coffee cherries are processed to extract the beans, which are then sent to a gourmet roaster in Bangkok.
The result is similar to Kopi Luwak, but the elephants’ massive stomach provides a bonus. Think of the elephant as the animal kingdom’s equivalent of a slow cooker. It takes between 15-30 hours to digest the beans, which stew together with bananas, sugar cane and other ingredients in the elephant’s vegetarian diet to infuse unique earthy and fruity flavours, said Blake Dinkin, the 42-year-old Canadian, who has a background in civet coffee.
As for the coffee’s inflated price, Dinkin half-joked that elephants are highly inefficient workers. It takes 33 kilograms of raw coffee cherries to produce one kilogram of elephant dung coffee. The majority of beans get chewed up, broken, or lost in tall grass after being excreted.
Source – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinkpicturegalleries/9737226/Elephant-dung-coffee-Black-Ivory-beans-passed-through-the-animals-guts.html?frame=2424296
Beware of fake Buddhist monks!
Luang Pu Nenkham Chattigo, the flamboyant abbot of Khantitham Forest Monastery has attracted attention ever since a video of him flying on a private jet, while wearing aviator sunglasses and carrying a Louis Vuitton bag went viral.
Buddhist monks are supposed to stay celibate. However the 34-year-old abbot of the Khantitham Forest Monastery who has fathered 2 children is apparently married to a woman named Yupinpraethong Janthawa, and has allegedly had relationships with 8 other women.
The abbot was accused of being a fake monk and of committing fraud by wearing monk’s robes he is not entitled to. Posing and dressing as a monk is a criminal offence in Thailand.
The complaint was filed at Bangkok’s Criminal Court by Luang Pu Buddha Isara, the abbot of another monastery.
The cleric is now the subject of a joint investigation by the DSI and the Office of National Buddhism, which oversees Thailand’s 200,000 monks.
He is also at the centre of a money-laundering investigation.
Police Colonel Pong-in Intarakhao claim the abbot and his associates had 41 bank accounts, mostly in his name, and that he is believed to own two houses and 13 cars and motorbikes. Much of the cash in the accounts is believed to have come from public donations to his monastery in the northeastern province of Si Saket.
While scandals involving monks taking drugs, gambling and driving around in expensive cars are not uncommon, the extent of Luang Pu Nenkham’s alleged misdeeds has shocked Thailand, which has the world’s largest Buddhist population.
The abbot, who claims to have walked on water, is believed to be travelling in Europe.
Source – http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=52,11515,0,0,1,0#.Up69c8QW2So