Panda Dung Tea to Hit Market at Over $200 a Cup

Chinese entrepreneur says pandas are “a machine that is churning out organic fertilizer."

A Chinese entrepreneur is hawking the world’s most expensive tea – made with panda poo.

An Yanshi’s tea is grown in mountainous Ya’an in Sichuan province and uses as fertilizer tons of panda dung from bears that live at nearby breeding centers and feast on wild bamboo, Reuters reported.

He’s priced his first 50 gram lots to hit the market at 22,000 yuan ($3,500) each, meaning a cup made with 3 grams of tea will cost about $210.

A portion of profits will go to an environment fund and prices will eventually drop, Reuters reported.

An, dressed in a panda suit to promote his brew, likened the beasts to “a machine that is churning out organic fertilizer."

“They keep eating and they keep producing feces," he told Reuters. "Also, they absorb less than 30 percent of the nutrition from the food, and that means more than 70 percent of the nutrients are passed out in their feces."

Pandas aren’t the only animals prized for their dung.

Coffee beans that work their way through the digestive systems of Indonesian civet cats can sell for up to $150 a pound.
 

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