Kopi luwak

Sumatran kopi luwak farmer holds civet feces with embedded coffee beans. Sumatra, Indonesia

A Civet Cat in the Kape Melo Farms, Inc., of Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines

Kopi luwak (Malay pronunciation: [ˈkopi ˈlu.aʔ]), or civet coffee refers to the beans of coffee berries once they have been eaten and excreted by the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) and other civets. The name is also used for brewed coffee made from those beans. The civet eats the berries for their fleshy pulp. In the digestive tract, the civet's proteolytic enzymes seep into the beans, making shorter peptides and more free amino acids. Passing through a civet's intestines the beans are then defecated, keeping their shape.

The method of collected feces from wild civets has given way to intensive farming methods in which caged civets are force fed the coffee beans. This method of production has has raised ethical concerns about the treatment of civets due to "horrific conditions" including isolation, poor diet, small cages and a high mortality rate.

Producers of the coffee beans argue that the process of passing through the civets digestive process improves the flavor profile.

Although kopi luwak is a form of processing, not a variety of coffee, it has been called the most expensive coffee in the world with retail prices reaching €550 / US$700 per kilogram . The price paid to collectors in the Philippines is closer to US$20 per kilogram.

Kopi luwak is produced mainly on the islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali, and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago. It is also widely gathered in the forest or produced in the farms in the islands of the Philippines (where the product is called kape motit in the Cordillera region, kape alamid in Tagalog areas, and kape melô or kape musang in Mindanao island), and in East Timor (where it is called kafé-laku). Weasel coffee is a loose English translation of its Vietnamese name cà phê Chồn, where popular, chemically simulated versions are also produced.

History

A cup of Kopi Luwak Gayo, Takengon, Aceh, Indonesia

The origin of kopi luwak is closely connected with the history of coffee production in Indonesia. In the early 18th century the Dutch established the cash-crop coffee plantations in their colony in the Dutch East Indies islands of Java and Sumatra, including Arabica coffee introduced from Yemen. During the era of Cultuurstelsel (1830—1870), the Dutch prohibited the native farmers and plantation workers from picking coffee fruits for their own use. Still, the native farmers wanted to have a taste of the famed coffee beverage. Soon, the natives learned that certain species of musang or luwak (Asian Palm Civet) consumed the coffee fruits, yet they left the coffee seeds undigested in their droppings. The natives collected these luwaks' coffee seed droppings, then cleaned, roasted and ground them to make their own coffee beverage. The fame of aromatic civet coffee spread from locals to Dutch plantation owners and soon became their favorite, yet because of its rarity and unusual process, the civet coffee was expensive even in colonial times.

Taste of brewed kopi luwak

Few objective assessments of taste are available. Kopi luwak is a name for any beans collected from the excrement of civets, hence the taste may vary with the type and origin of beans ingested, processing subsequent to collection, roasting, ageing and brewing. The ability of the civet to select its cherries, and other aspects of the civet's diet and health (eg stress levels) may also influence the processing and hence taste.

It is claimed that kopi luwak coffees have a shared aroma profile and flavor characteristics, along with their lack of bitterness. Brewed kopi luwak has a thick texture, and tastes vary depending on roasting levels. Usually, roasting levels range from cinnamon color to medium, with little or no caramelization of sugars within the beans as happens with heavy roasting. Moreover, kopi luwaks which have very smooth profiles are most often given a lighter roast, though at first taste it can seem a bit strong in flavor. Iced kopi luwak brews may bring out some flavors not found in other coffees. Other berries eaten by civets can give kopi luwak a pungent, sometimes bitter taste, though it varies depending on the diet of the civet.

A coffee professional cited in the SCAA article was able to compare the same beans with and without the kopi luwak process using a rigorous coffee cupping evaluation. He concluded: "it was apparent that Luwak coffee sold for the story, not superior quality...Using the SCAA cupping scale, the Luwak scored two points below the lowest of the other three coffees. It would appear that the Luwak processing diminishes good acidity and flavor and adds smoothness to the body, which is what many people seem to note as a positive to the coffee.”

Tim Carman, food writer for the Washington Post reviewed kopi luwak available in the US and concluded "It tasted just like...Folgers. Stale. Lifeless. Petrified dinosaur droppings steeped in bathtub water. I couldn’t finish it."

Production

An Asian Palm Civet

Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee. Luwak is a local name of the Asian Palm Civet in Sumatra. Palm civets are primarily frugivorous, feeding on berries and pulpy fruits such as figs and palms. Civets also eat small vertebrates, insects, ripe fruits and seeds.

Early production began when beans were gathered in the wild from where a civet would defecate as a means to mark its territory. On farms, civets are either caged or allowed to roam within defined boundaries.

Coffee cherries are eaten by a civet for their fruit pulp. After spending about a day and a half in the civet's digestive tract the beans are then defecated in clumps, having kept their shape and still covered with some of the fleshy berry's inner layers.

Sumatra is the world's largest regional producer of kopi luwak. Sumatran civet coffee beans are mostly an early arabica variety cultivated in the Indonesian archipelago since the seventeenth century. The major Sumatran kopi luwak production area is in Lampung, Bengkulu and Aceh especially the Gayo region, Takengon. Tagalog kape alamid comes from civets fed on a mixture of coffee beans and is sold in the Batangas region along with gift shops near airports in the Philippines.

Vietnam has 2 farms with 300 wild civets in Dak Lak, while in Mindanao island of the Philippines, has 2 farms with 200 (in Davao City) and 100 (in Cagayan de Oro City) wild civets. But the archipelago of Indonesia where the famous kopi luwak was first discovered and produced is leading in supplying the world market for almost 3 centuries, where many small-scale civet farms are proliferating in the countryside.

Research

Defecated luwak coffee berries, East Java

Several studies have examined the process in which the animal's stomach acids and enzymes digest the beans' covering and ferment the beans. Research by food scientist Massimo Marcone at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada showed that the civet's endogenous digestive secretions seep into the beans. These secretions carry proteolytic enzymes which break down the beans' proteins, yielding shorter peptides and more free amino acids. Since the flavor of coffee owes much to its proteins, there is a hypothesis that this shift in the numbers and kinds of proteins in beans after being swallowed by civets brings forth their unique flavor. The proteins are also involved in non-enzymatic Maillard browning reactions brought about later by roasting. Moreover, while inside a civet the beans begin to germinate by malting which also lowers their bitterness.

At the outset of his research Marcone doubted the safety of kopi luwak. However, he found that after the thorough washing, levels of harmful organisms were insignificant. Roasting at high temperature has been cited as making the beans safer after washing.

Civet coffee imitation

Research into the palm civet's digestive processes and the transformation of the beans' proteins has led to the discovery of innovative ways to imitate the taste of kopi luwak without the civet's involvement. This was done in response to the decrease in civet population, caused by intensive farming of the civets and hunting it for its meat. Kopi luwak production involves a great deal of labor, whether farmed or wild-gathered. The small production quantity and the labor involved in production contribute to the coffee's high cost. The high price of kopi luwak is another factor that drives the search for a way to produce kopi luwak in large quantities, lowering the cost.

The University of Florida has developed a way to recreate how nature produces kopi luwak without the involvement of any animals. This technology has been licensed to a Gainesville Florida firm, Coffee Primero, which now produces and distributes that product at a price competitive with ordinary quality coffees.

The Trung Nguyên Coffee Company in Vietnam, through its work in isolating the civet's digestive enzymes, has patented its own synthetic enzyme soak, which is used in its Legendee brand simulated kopi luwak coffee.

Animal Welfare Issues

Due to the demand growing numbers of intensive civet "farms" are emerging across south-east Asia, confining tens of thousands of animals to live in tiny cages and be force-fed. '"The conditions are awful, much like battery chickens," said Chris Shepherd, deputy regional director of the conservation NGO Traffic south-east Asia. "The civets are taken from the wild and have to endure horrific conditions. They fight to stay together but they are separated and have to bear a very poor diet in very small cages. There is a high mortality rate and for some species of civet, there's a real conservation risk. It's spiralling out of control. But there's not much public awareness of how it's actually made. People need to be aware that tens of thousands of civets are being kept in these conditions. It would put people off their coffee if they knew."'

Novelty Factor

Some critics claim more generally that kopi luwak is simply bad coffee, purchased for novelty rather than taste. Dr. Massimo Marcone, who performed extensive chemical tests on the beans (elaborated on later in this article), was unable to conclude if anything about their properties made them superior for purposes of making coffee. He employed several professional coffee tasters (called "cuppers") in a blind taste test. While the cuppers were able to distinguish the kopi luwak as distinct from the other samples, they had nothing remarkable to appraise about it other than it was less acidic and had less body, tasting "thin." The SCAA indicates that there is a "general consensus within the industry ... it just tastes bad".

Marcone remarked "It's not that people are after that distinct flavor. They are after the rarity of the coffee."

Price and availability

A window display in an upscale coffee shop showing Luwak Coffee in forms of defecated clumps (bottom), pre-roasted beans (left), and post-roasted beans (right).

Kopi luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between US$100 and $600 per pound. The specialty Vietnamese weasel coffee, which is made by collecting coffee beans eaten by wild civets, is sold at $3,000 per kilogram (approx. $1,364 per pound). Most customers are asian – especially those originating from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Sources vary widely as to annual worldwide production.

The price paid to collectors in the Philippines is closer to US$20 per kilogram.

Some specialty coffee shops sell cups of brewed kopi luwak for US$35-$80.

Variations

There are reports of a kopi luwak type process occurring naturally with muntjac and artificially with elephants.

External links

• ABC Australia television: Sumatra – Extreme Coffee
• ABC News: Story and photo report
• BBC: Civet coffee selling well despite SARS
• BBC: Report in the Philippines
• CBC.ca: Article on "cat poop coffee"
• Guardian: World's most expensive coffee tainted by 'horrific' civet abuse
• Life magazine slideshow: From Civet Poop to Great Coffee
• University of Guelph: Article on the effects of the digestive system on coffee beans
• USA Today: Article on civet coffee

See also

• Black Ivory coffee