Hey coffee lovers, I know how much you love your precious beverage. That piping hot fuel injection you use ritually to start your day, and the way that you crave it’s caffeinated goodness because it gets the motor running. To be honest, I don’t know that much about coffee, nor do I understand why people love it so. But I do find myself curious about a particular type of coffee, you may have heard of before; kopi luwak, or, civet coffee.
If you’re like me, the first time you may have heard of this coffee is by watching the movie, ‘The Bucket List’, where Jack Nicholson isn’t aware of how kopi luwak is made until he is enlightened by Morgan Freeman (sidenote: I know I can’t be the only person alive who would want Morgan Freeman to read their eulogy). So, if you are like me, you know the basics; there is a cat-like animal that eats the berries, poops them out and then people collect the fecal matter and make an expensive coffee that we have decided we’d like to drink. There is in fact more to the story, and I’m going to break it down for you. While the above is basically on point, as with most products our species desire that require some sort of assistance from animals to create, we have glossed over the actuality of how it happens.
The Asian Palm Civet (also known as a toddy cat) is native to the Indian Continent and Southeast Asia and weighs between 2 and 5 kilograms. Producers of the coffee beans that makes kopi luwak (Kopi being the Indonesian word for coffee, and luwak being the local name for the Asian Palm Civet in Sumatra) believe that the process is improved through two mechanisms; selection and digestion. The civets, which eat the beans are thought to choose the coffee berries that contain the better beans, and their digestive mechanisms then may improve the flavor profile of the beans that have been eaten.
Basically, the civet has an uncanny ability to choose the better beans and does so for the fleshy pulp of the berries, then through the process of fermentation in its digestive tract the civets proteolytic enzymes seep into the beans. The civet then defecates these beans and any other fecal matter, which is then collected, washed and roasted. It is considered to be a real delicacy. Mmm, yummy. Fecal matter from a cat.
Kopi luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, with prices reaching around $822.00NZD per kilogram, where the price paid to the collectors is around $25.00NZD per kilogram! And this is where human nature shows it’s true colours. Just like everything else we’ve decided we can mass produce to make money from, kopi luwak is no exception, and the traditional method of collecting feces from wild cevets has given way to… you guessed it, civets in battery cages. The cevet is force fed coffee beans, which raises significant ethical concerns over the treatment of civets because as is similar with other battery farmed animals, they live in horrific conditions including isolation, a poor diet and small cages.
It has also been widely criticised largely by traditional farmers because through this process, the cevet does not select its berries as it does in the wild so its beans are of a poorer quality. Regardless of where the beans come from, kopi luwak is widely regarded in the coffee industry as a gimmick or novelty item, with the general consensus of the Specialty Coffee Association of America being that “it just tastes bad”.
That’s all I really need to know about this coffee to know that it’s probably not something I’ll ever be willing to drink. The whole idea just seems a tad on the ridiculous side, yes, it’s slightly interesting and I always wonder how people found that they could make coffee from this thinking it was a good idea, much the same as the first person that discovered cheese. But I’d eat cheese over and over again, so maybe not the best comparison.
What are your thoughts on kopi luwak and would you drink it? Maybe you’ve tried it before and would like to share your thoughts? Personally, as someone who knows nothing about coffee, I reckon the Nespresso machine on the bench does just fine. Coffee lovers that I’ve made a beverage for before have stated that it makes great coffee, so that’s probably the only endorsement I need.
Song of the day:
Black Coffee – All Saints
Added to the blog playlist, scroll right to the bottom, click below to listen:
http://open.spotify.com/user/1231002198/playlist/5d1G5zVPkHJHODZRhsnnoI
The Ilum 