Trung Nguyên then passed through its digestive tract. After gathering, thorough washing, sun drying, light roasting, and brewing, these beans yield an aromatic coffee with much less bitterness. Trung Nguyên's Legendee brand coffee is a simulated kopi luwak product, which uses synthetic enzymes to mimic the civet's gastric acid, producing effects on flavour similar to actual kopi luwak, and reducing the need to rely on the civet, which is now endangered in Vietnam due to excessive hunting. In August 2010, Trung Nguyên CEO Dang Le Nguyen Vu reported that the company had begun manually producing its own natural (non-simulated) kopi luwak under
Coffee 2013, "The Seattle Times" reported that global coffee prices dropped more than 50 percent year-over-year. The downward trend continued, and in September 2018 coffee futures dropped to a 12-year low, below the cost of production for many farmers in mountainous regions who cannot use mechanized harvesting methods. In Thailand, black ivory coffee beans are fed to elephants whose digestive enzymes reduce the bitter taste of beans collected from dung. These beans sell for up to $1,100 a kilogram ($500 per lb), achieving the world's most expensive coffee some three times costlier than beans harvested from the dung of Asian palm