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Chinese boffin uses panda poo for world's priciest cuppa
Mmm, a truly extinctive aroma....
A Chinese biologist has collected five tons of panda crap which he plans to use to make cancer-fighting tea, which will sell at a cup-dropping $36,000 a pound.
An Yashi, a lecturer from Sichuan, reckons the panda scat is chock full of cancer combating substances, making it an ideal fertiliser for green tea - already famously full of antioxidants.
The lovingly harvested ursine droppings will also impart their own flavours to the brew, which Yashi reportedly describes as having a uniquely nutty character.
It is the panda's famously useless digestive system and food preferences that make its dung such a rich source of nutrients.
The black and white bears inhabit an evolutionary cul-de-sac as they gorge themselves on bamboo shoots. Their digestive systems only absorb about 30 per cent of the potential nutrients they scoff, leaving the furry fellas' faeces stuffed full of goodies
The Chinese char innovation has invited inevitable comparison with the famed Kopi Luwak coffee, which costs upwards of £100 a pound. However, those beans have actually passed through the gut of the Asian Palm Civet, making it an even more exotic, or disgusting, cuppa, depending on your point of view. ®