Asian Palm Civet, origin of the Kopi Luwak
I was wondering what would anyone think if they saw this creature?! it sure isn’t the cutest you’d see ?!
Well it may not be the cutest, but it sure is one of the most famous, this is the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus), also known as the Toddy Cat, and it’s the origin of Kopi Luwak, the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 USD per pound.
Kopi Luwak is made from coffee berries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet . The civets eat the berries, but the beans inside pass through their system undigested. This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago, and in the Philippines (where the product is called Kape Alamid). Vietnam has a similar type of coffee, called weasel coffee, which are coffee berries which have been defecated by local weasels. In actuality the “weasel” is just the local version of the Asian Palm Civet.
Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee, and luwak is a local name of the Asian Palm Civet. The raw, red coffee berries are part of its normal diet, along with insects, small mammals, small reptiles, eggs and nestlings of birds, and other fruit. The inner bean of the berry is not digested, but it has been proposed that 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 excreted 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. Some sources claim that the beans may be regurgitated instead of defecated.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) scare led to thousands of these civets in China being exterminated, but the demand for the coffee was not affected.
We may not have this coffee in Jordan, but i’m sure all coffee lovers like myself are dying to get a taste of Kopi Luwak.
I looked this up after watching the movie “Bucket List”, where Jack Nickelson always insisted on taking his Kopi Luwak machine wherever he went, even when he stayed in hospital with a few months to live..
Enjoy
