If you have not yet heard of the Luwak coffee before, keep on reading and let yourself be surprised. At the end of this article you will either be very curious and eager to try it for yourself or declare those that drink this crazy people. Either way I can guarantee it will be an interesting read for both those fan of coffee or not.
As you could kind of already guess, Luwak coffee is not just any coffee. It is seen as one of the most expensive and exclusive coffees on earth. This coffee has a very unique and uncommon process regarding its development. It is made with the help of the Indonesian palm civet. How you might ask? Well, this animal eats the raw coffee cherries, which are grown on the plantations. The pulp of the coffee cherries is digested, but the seeds remain intact. They poop them out and are then washed, dried, lightly roasted and processed into the one and only Kopi Luwak coffee. You might think, who in the world would want to try a coffee which has been through the digestive system of an animal, however as a huge coffee lover myself, this was just something I had to try!
Now let us dive a little bit deeper into the technicalities and history of this special coffee.
Where does the name Kopi Luwak come from?
It gets its name from the fact that ‘kopi’ means coffee and the civet cat is called ‘luwak’ in the local language. Meanwhile this type of coffee is not only being produced in Indonesia (Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, Bali) anymore, but also in multiple different Asian countries (like Vietnam and the Philippines) as well.
The luwak is a small animal that kind of looks like a badger or a cat. Even though the word cat has been mentioned multiple times already and a lot of people think it is some type of cat, this is not true. It is indeed commonly called civet cats, but they are more closely related to mongooses than they are to cats. It has a small and pointed nose and lives at night. This animal is mainly seen in tropical areas and therefore has access to the places where the coffee is grown. They like to eat the cherries because of their smell and taste, it is sweet and similar to jelly.
How did this start?
Unfortunately, it all started in the 19e century Dutch colonial era, the native coffee plantation workers were forbidden to pick coffee for their own consumption. As a result, they had to make do and needed to substitute to still be able to drink coffee. They discovered undigested been in the civets faeces and decided to try and make coffee from it, which is now known as the Kopi Luwak coffee. It quickly grew in popularity and was praised for its exceptional taste and unique aromas. You now pay a fortune for the coffee and people say only about 500 kilograms of Kopi Luwak are produced per year. It costs between € 90,- and € 450,- per 500 gram and thus some call it the caviar among all coffee types.
Is Luwak Coffee ethical?
When doing more research about this coffee, I also discovered the darker side of this coffee. Because this coffee is so expensive, it has not only become popular to drink it but also to make it. Over the past few year you hear more and more stories about the bad conditions for these animals. People try to catch and imprison them, a lot of these times the animals are left with broken limps. They are captured and put in small cages to facilitate large-scale coffee production. There are still organisations out there that claim to ethically source, collect, and select this bean by wild, free living Asian Palm Civets in Indonesia. So, if you want to try it, please make sure to check if they made it ethically!
How is the coffee made?
Luwak coffee is harvested when the coffee cherries are ripe and ready for consumption by civets, which typically occurs during the coffee harvesting season. It depends on the region where the coffee is grown, but in Indonesia, this usually falls between April and September (but this also depends on climate and altitude). The coffee cherries are swallowed without chewing and will take about 6 until 10 hours to digest. Within this time a fermentation process occurs, which will improve the quality of the taste, the level of acid and caffeine are low. After this the faeces of the animals are collected and as they can be very hard to find, and in addition to this already time consuming process, it is important that the coffee beans do not become stale after roasting. For this reason, Kopi Luwak coffee beans are often roasted in small quantities and on order, which further increases the price.
What does it taste like?
Like I already lightly touched upon in the beginning, the taste of this coffee is soft and rich. It can be described as earthy, mossy and syrupy and it all owes it taste to the fact that acids, gastric juices and enzymes from the luwak have been able to briefly act on the beans during the digestion process. The heat when roasting the beans causes these acids to strongly interact with one another, which is the reason for the specific taste. The smell has been described as a ‘perfect balance between sweet and fresh’’.
As an amateur coffee lover myself, the Luwak coffee had been long on my bucket list. Because you know how it is made it becomes an experience in itself and let me tell you I was anything but disappointed. I paid 6 euros for a small cup of coffee but it was definitely worth it. You have to put your thoughts of how the bean has gone through a digestive system aside. I do have to say, when doing more research about this specific coffee I learned a lot, both positively and unfortunately, also negatively. I definitely recommend it to at least try it once but make sure its produced ethically.
