Nothing says , " I ’m fertile , I ’m extravagant and I like to put a little something strange in my mouth first affair in the morning , " better than a steaming hot mugful of " civet poop " deep brown . Just know in progression of your next soft caffeine experience that a loving cup of $ 90- to $ 650 - per - Cypriot pound Kopi Luwak coffee is a slickly market , exquisitely hyped merger of what " cat " scat singing , merge with harshness to small tropical mammals , tastes like .
Though often called a " civet cat computerized axial tomography , " the shyAsian palm civetis a nocturnal , arboreal , mostly only forager and cat - similar hunter that is actually more similar to a mongoose , weaselorferretthan a feline . Bottom line : By any name , its poop is worth a lot in the niche world market of the " coffee - crazed " elite .
moot among the top mostexpensivecups of joe in the humankind , the authentic , rarefied and raving mad - harvested examples ofKopi(Indonesian for " coffee")Luwak(“palm civet”)coffeecome from civets in Bali or other contiguous islands .
What Is Kopi Luwak?
Marketing " fable " has it that wild civets slip into coffee woodlet at night and discernibly lurch for and deplete only the fine , sweetest , ripestcoffee cherry . The cerise then go along through their digestive piece of ground where their little civet gut do " wizard " mellow - making , enzymatic things to the protein body structure of the bean . Approximately one day later , the civets defecate the highly prize residuum that will ultimately become what ’s hype as a more refined and distinct cup of coffee .
What really makes the rare 100 percent pure and unfeignedly humanist Kopi Luwak coffee so expensive though , is this fun fact : Plantation workers , aka human being , must labor in Indonesia ’s tropical heat to situate and collect the civet dung by hand . Next , they confront the long-winded , not - so - pleasant and time - consuming task of hand - sort out their way through the excretory product to recollect the ripe , dope - covered cherry . After that , worker wash , dry and roast the beans to create what the marketplace touts as a scarce , top tier up , epicure coffee . In fact , one studycontends that only 500 pounds ( 227 kilograms)in totalof unquestionable wild - source Kopi Lowak is make up per year .
While authentic , low - yielding , wild - source Kopi Luwak fetch the in high spirits price , the truth is that some sources account that up to 70 percent of Kopi Luwak sold isnot the genuine deal . Turns out most varieties on today ’s market place are blends that can lawfully stop as little as 1 percent literal civet cat coffee to de jure practice the name " Kopi Luwak . " moreover , no certification program exists to guarantee that Kopi Luwak coffee that ’s label " wild " is actually veritable .
Farm-raised Kopi Luwak
Enter the slippery slope of supply and demand : farm - raised Kopi Luwak . It ’s amiserable , insanity - inducing universe for these solitary little beasts , who go from rock in the free universe one day to being trapped , chock up intobattery coop , support enwrapped and fed nothing but coffee berry edible bean cherries day after day . Not only is the civetmortality ratehigh on farm - raised plantation , but the mono - diet also produces a poor - calibre production .
Does Poop Coffee Even Taste Good?
A fate ofpeoplein the coffee industry and beyond say that Kopi Luwak is far from ranking and tastes like , well , crap . " On a farm in East Java , I had the opportunity to evaluate a batch of Luwak coffee from ferrets raised in captivity and fed the same burnt umber . After trying several sample , it is light that Luwak coffee is sold for its chronicle , not higher-ranking quality , " Rocky Rhodes of International Coffee ConsultingtoldHelena Coffee Processing & Export in Vietnam .
And Tony Wild , the former director of Taylors and Harrogate , the British chocolate company that introduced Kopi Luwak to the West , saidin an interview with The Guardian , " When I introduced Kopi Luwak to the U.K. , it was an curious freshness . Now , it ’s overestimate , industrialized , pitiless and unauthentic . "
The nitty - granular bottom line ? Kopi Luwak coffee is made from issue that is excreted from an animal ’s nourishing canal . It may , or in all likelihood does not , sample bully , it ’s expensive and it ’s torment for the trivial captives who produce it . So , if any of that gives you pause , but you still want to sample Kopi Luwak coffee , please book a flying to Indonesia and obtain a local , dependable source of authentic , wild civet ninny .
