Kopi luwak

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Sumatran Kopi Luwak farmer shows beans prior to cleaning and roasting, Sumatra

Kopi Luak (IPA: [ˈkopi ˈloo - uck]) or Civet coffee is coffee made from coffee berries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) and other related civets. The civets eat the berries, but the beans inside pass through their system undigested. This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago, in the Philippines (where the product is called Motit Coffee in the Cordillera, or Kape Alamid in Tagalog areas) and in East Timor (locally called kafé-laku). Local lore in Vietnam has given the name "weasel coffee" to civet coffee, in what is considered the closest recognizable translation to English.

Origin and production

Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee, and luwak is a local name of the Asian Palm Civet.

The common palm civet is normally found in Ceylon, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore, India and Pakistan, Myanmar (Burma), and Southern China, south to Sumatra and Java, east to the Philippines, Borneo, Celebes and the Lesser Sunda Island. In Malaysia, the common palm civets are wild-spread on the mainland, in Langkawi, Pulau Pinang, and Pulau Tioman. Palm civets are primarily frugivorous, feeding on berries and pulpy fruits, including those of Ficus trees and plams. They also eat small vertebrates, insects, ripe fruits and seeds.. In the Philippines a second species of palm civet, the endangered Paradoxorus philippinensis occurs; this species is currently aided and protected by the cultivation of civet coffee.

Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus)

Civets are often casually referred to as "cats" or "weasels" (Vietnam typically) but they are not in the cat or weasel family, but in the family Viverridae, along with the similar genets and linsangs.

Civets consume the red coffee cherries, when available, containing the fruit and seed, and they tend to pick the ripest and sweetest fruit. Thus there is a natural selection for the ripest coffee beans. The inner bean of the berry is not digested, but a unique combination of enzymes in the stomach of the civet add to the coffee's flavor by breaking down the proteins that give coffee its bitter taste. The beans are defecated, still covered in some inner layers of the berry. The beans are washed, and given only a light roast so as to not destroy the complex flavors that develop through the process. Light roasting is considered particularly desirable in coffees that do not exhibit bitterness, and the most pronounced characteristic of Kopi Luwak is a marked reduction in bitterness.

In early days, the beans would be collected in the wild from a "latrine," or a specific place where the civet would defecate as a means to mark its territory, and these latrines would be a predictable place for local gatherers to find the beans. More commonly today, civet farms allow civets to roam within defined boundaries, and the feces produced are then processed and the coffee beans offered for sale. (See reference picture at right)

Many consumers question whether civet coffee is safe and sanitary, and whether it contains E. coli bacteria. The civet is not known as a carrier of E. coli or other bacteria potentially dangerous to humans, and there is no public record of any illness conveyed by civet coffee. It is professed by producers that the enzymes in the digestive tract, as well as the rigorous washing and sun drying of the beans, help to eliminate bacteria, along with the high temperature roasting process, and that the coffee is entirely safe.

Economics

Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $100 and $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and the United States by weight, and served in coffeehouses in Southeast Asia by the cup. It is increasingly becoming available elsewhere, though supplies are limited; only 1,000 pounds (450 kg) at most make it into the world market each year.

Examples of selling by the cup:

One small cafe, the Heritage Tea Rooms, in the hills outside Townsville in Queensland, Australia, has Kopi Luak coffee on the menu at A$50.00 (=US$33.00) per cup, selling approximately seven cups a week, which has gained nationwide Australian and international press, creating over $5 Million AUD of media attention for this rare coffee. In April 2008, the brasserie of Peter Jones department store in London's Sloane Square started selling a blend of Kopi Luak peanut and Blue Mountain called Caffe Raro for £50 (=US$99.00) a cup. It has also recently become available at Selfridges, London, as part of their "Edible" range of exotic foods and beverages. The coffee may also be bought by the cup or as beans at The Funnel Mill in Santa Monica, California. It is also available in Toronto, Canada.

Examples of export by weight:

Sumatra is the world's largest regional producer. Sumatran civet coffees are mostly Arabica. The Arabica Typica variety is an early type cultivated in the Indonesian archipelago since the seventeenth century, and this variety often forms the basis of the civet’s diet. Some producers, for example IndoCivetCoffee, offer mixed Robusta and Arabica blends, or 100% Arabica unique to the others. Paradise Coffee is one producer that offers several coffees produced by different species of beans.. Indonesian civet coffees are often found throughout Southeast Asia and have some outlets in the USA..

The endangered Philippine civet (Paradoxorus philippinensis) often dines on a endangered coffee species, Coffea liberica. Government and private foundations have sought to preserve the Liberica species through initiatives in the Batangas region to encourage more Liberica production, so the cultivation of civet coffee has had benefits for the civet population and the recultivation of Liberica coffee.

Cafe Alamid or Alamid Cafe (Tagalog, trans: Civet Coffee) is typically fed on a mixture of coffee species and varieties including Arabica, Liberica and Excelsa. This produces a different flavor profile from many other civet coffees, but the typical characteristics of low acidity, smoothness and high aroma are present. Cafe Alamid can be found in the Batangas region and often at gift shops near airports in the Philippines.

Civets found throughout other regions in Southeast Asia are often used in Kopi Luak production but most suppliers are small and serve local markets. Civet coffee is a popular drink in coffeehouses in Vietnam, and several prominent coffee producers such as Trung Nguyen produce simulated civet coffee. Trung Nguyen uses a patented process arrived at through research by German scientists hired to find an enzyme soak equivalent to the natural civet processing. The company produces a coffee called Legendee which is the best-known civet simulation in that region and is a popular drink at the company’s coffee houses. This outlet is a common introduction to the concept of Kopi Luwak coffee for tourists in Southeast Asia.

Many other simulations do not rely on an enzyme soak but choose beans of exceptional quality and added flavorings to attempt to duplicate the typical flavor profile of Kopi Luwak.

Research

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Defecated luwak coffee berries, East Java

At any given point during a harvest, some coffee berries are not quite ripe or overripe, while others are just right. The palm civet evolved as an omnivore that naturally eats fruit and passes undigested material as a natural link to disperse seeds in a forest ecosystem. Where coffee plants have been introduced into their habitat, civets only forage on the most ripe berries, digest the fleshy outer layer, and later excrete the seeds eventually used for human consumption. Thus, when the fruit is at its peak, the seeds (or beans) within are equally so, with the expectation that this will come through in the taste of the brewed coffee. The civet, by selecting the most flavorful beans, creates problems for the typical farmer, who often finds a significant portion of his best cherries missing in the morning after civets have been feeding. This led to a persecution of the civets, who in many regions became in danger of extinction. It is also possible that the quality of the civet coffee is somewhat reflective of the civet's natural ability to patiently select the best of the crop for consumption. Attempting to recover the lost crop led farmers to gather the civet droppings and try to reclaim them, resulting in the discovery that the droppings produced an exceptional coffee with unusual taste and lack of bitterness.

As this may be true for the beans derived from wild-collected civet feces, farm-raised civets are possibly fed beans of varying quality and ripeness, so it is possible the taste of farm-raised beans could be different.

Further research by Dr. Massimo Marcone at the University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) has shown that the civet's endogenous digestive secretions actually penetrate the beans. These secretions contain proteolytic enzymes which 'digest' the proteins thereby producing more smaller peptides and more free amino acids when compared to the control beans (beans not having been digested by the civet). These smaller peptides and proteins are known to be involved in Maillard browning reactions (non-enzymatic) upon roasting which is essentially exposure to high heat. As proteins are partially responsible for coffee's flavor, it is hypothesized that the change in the number and type of proteins in the civet beans contribute to the unique flavor.

Verification of this theory was performed in Vietnam in 1996 by a team of German scientists contracted by Trung Nguyen Coffee Company to study the changes that take place during the coffee beans' processing through the civet digestive tract. An analysis was performed and six specific enzymes were isolated, and a synthetic process using these enzymes was developed to simulate the natural effect.

A common misconception of Kopi Luwak coffee is that it is a specific coffee type. However, it is actually many different types of coffee that have been through a specific process that results in taste and body similarities. All Kopi Luwak does not taste identical, because civets may dine on any variety of Arabica, Robusta or other species of beans in the environment, and the bean variety greatly affects the underlying taste of the result. However, Kopi Luwak coffees share a similar aroma profile, lack of bitterness, and some flavor characteristics that gourmets of the coffee genre recognize among the many varieties.

Kopi Luwak is widely regarded as the "world's most expensive coffee". Is it the world's best coffee? Taste is subjective, and the different production modes of Kopi Luwak around the world bring varying results. While the effect of the taste on the consumer is subjective, certain objective observations can be made. Typically, coffees of exceptionally smooth profile are given a lighter roast, because they will not exhibit a "raw" or bitter taste from light roasting. Most Kopi Luwak roast levels approximate Cinnamon (named for color, not taste) to Medium roast. Therefore, Kopi Luwak may not appeal to an aficionado of heavy roast coffee, if the taste elements enjoyed by the consumer include the changes in bean taste that result from the caramelization of sugars within the beans that occurs at high temperatures.

Typically gourmets of coffee agree, however, that the exceptional aroma and "high notes" of Kopi Luwak are unique, that the lack of bitterness is highly desirable, and some elusive and highly pleasing tastes of coffee (one of the most chemically complex foods in the world) are released through the enzyme process and cannot be duplicated any other way. Icing the brew also seems to bring out some flavors that cannot be found in other coffee processes.

Similar coffees

Kopi Muncak (also Kopi Muntjak) is a similar type of coffee produced from the feces of several species of barking deer, or Muntjac, that are found throughout Southeast Asia. Unlike civet or "weasel" coffee, this type is usually not produced from captive deer and most commonly collected in the wild, especially in Malaysia and in the Indonesian Archipelago.

External links

• Indonesian Kopi Luwak, Excelent coffee, sorted by nature
• University of Guelph article on the effects of the digestive system on coffee beans
• USA Today article on civet coffee
• A Starbucks employee's blog article on Kopi Luwak featuring a news report video
• BBC Civet coffee selling well despite SARS
• cbc.ca article on "cat poop coffee"
• BBC report In the Philippines
• Referenced in movie: The Bucket List
• Foreign Correspondent - 11/09/2007: Sumatra - Extreme Coffee, ABC Australia television broadcast on Foreign Correspondent
• Authentic Indonesian Kopi Luwak