Kopi luwak is an incredibly rare specialty coffee made from partially digested coffee beans which are collected from the excretions of the Asian palm civet – a weasel-like creature native to Africa and Asia. Although the origins of kopi luwak might be off-putting for some, it is widely regarded as the most valuable coffee in the world.
Kopi luwak was originally discovered by Indonesian farmers in the 19th Century when Dutch colonials forbade locals from harvesting their own coffee. The farmers discovered that coffee beans eaten by palm civets remained whole, and began collecting and treating these beans for their own use.
Today, kopi luwak is one of the most sought-after gourmet coffees in the world. With a single pound of kopi luwak demanding prices in the hundreds of U.S. dollars, a highly lucrative trade has opened up around this rare coffee bean.
How did Kopi luwak get its name?
Derived from the Indonesian word for coffee – kopi – and the popular term for the Asian palm civet in Indonesia – luwak – kopi luwak quite literally translates as “civet coffee”. Kopi luwak goes by other names across Asia: in the Philippines it is simply called “civet coffee”, but in Vietnam it is known as “weasel coffee”, in a nod to the palm civet’s weasel-like appearance.
Why is Kopi luwak so special?
The diet of a palm civet is primarily made up of insects and a variety of fruits, including the coffee cherry. While most caffeine lovers will be very familiar with the coffee bean, many don’t know that this bean is actually the seed of the coffee cherry, which is the flowering fruit of the coffee plant.
When palm civets eat coffee cherries, their digestive enzymes alter the structure of the proteins in the coffee bean, which passes through their digestive system before being excreted. Fans of kopi luwak maintain that this process removes the acidity from the coffee beans, producing a much smoother cup of coffee.
The process of harvesting the beans for kopi luwak is extremely time intensive, and is one of the reasons that kopi luwak is so highly regarded. Farmers will collect the beans from the palm civet excrement, thoroughly wash them, and then leave them to air dry. The outer skin of the bean is then removed, and the beans are ready to be roasted.
How is Kopi luwak produced now?
While the process of producing kopi luwak remains largely the same as it did in 19th Century Indonesia, the growing popularity of this coffee has seen production shift to a broader, commercial scale.
Unfortunately for the palm civets, this has not been a change for the better.
In order to satisfy the increasing demand for this premium, high-value product, producers of kopi luwak have started catching and keeping wild palm civets in enclosures, feeding them exclusively on coffee cherries, and harvesting the resulting coffee beans.
Animal welfare groups who have examined the living conditions of palm civets kept on coffee plantations in Bali, Indonesia have found the vast majority of these operations severely wanting.
Besides the small enclosures and questionable hygiene practices employed by these plantations, their tendency to only feed the palm civets coffee beans is hugely damaging to the health of these animals. Wild palm civets usually have a very diverse diet, rich in other types of fruit, as well as insects and small reptiles.
There is also a school of thought that suggests that the kopi luwak produced by these commercial operations is an inferior product. Wild palm civets would typically only consume the choicest coffee cherries, and by indiscriminately feeding the captive palm civets with no consideration for quality, these plantation owners are devaluing their very own product.
Kopi luwak: is it worth it?
With a cup of kopi luwak demanding as much as US$80 for a single cup, it is certainly a heftier investment than your average cup of joe. Those who enjoy kopi luwak swear by its unique flavor and taste and assert that normal coffee simply doesn’t stand up to the task.
However, the recent commercialization of the production of kopi luwak has seen it move away from the sustainably foraged product that it was when discovered in the 19th Century. With increasing scrutiny around the treatment of palm civets used in the production of modern-day Kopi luwak, many consumers are growing conscious of the real costs of a cup of civet coffee, costs that go far beyond dollars and cents.