Digested coffee beans10/29/2023 Civets are endangered every day to meet the mounting interest, so it is important with any of the purchases we make to be aware of how exactly the products came to be. Kopi Luwak is one of the most expensive coffees in the world but behind the hefty price tag and glitz, there is a dark undertone. The frenzy around Kopi Luwak has a dark side, however. The difficulty of attaining the coffee as well as the fermentation of the beans in the civets is what makes the coffee so expensive. Then, the coffee beans are sorted, cleaned, and sent out. The civet then poops out the partially digested coffee beans. This is said to give the coffee the smooth taste and aroma that has made it sought after. The natural enzymes in the civets’ intestines furthermore strip the coffee of some of its caffeine and acidity. Once the cherries are eaten, the enzymes in the civets break down the outer layers of the cherry, leaving the beans. It is said that wild civets pick the plumpest/best cherries when foraging. To understand how the coffee is digested by the civets, we need to understand that coffee beans are the seeds found in coffee cherries. How is the coffee made? The Biology behind the Kopi Luwak Now that we have established what Kopi Luwak is, where it originates from, and from which animal the poop comes from, there’s one more thing we need to address. Native farmers soon realized that there were coffee beans left partially digested in the civet poop and as such Kopi Luwak was discovered. The cultivation system aimed to increase the exploitation of the ‘Dutch India resources’ and one of the implications of this system was that native coffee farmers were forbidden from picking cherries for personal consumption. As a result, in 1830, the cultivation system or ‘Cultuurstelsel’ in dutch was introduced. The Java and Pandri wars greatly affected the Dutch economy bringing them close to bankruptcy. According to Britannica, the Dutch East Indies “included the Greater Sunda Islands (Borneo, Celebes, Java, and Sumatra), the Lesser Sunda Islands (stretching eastward from Bali to Timor), the Moluccas, and New Guinea (including Papua New Guinea on the eastern half of the island)”.Ĭoffee was brought to Indonesia in the late 1600s and was widely enjoyed and cultivated. The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony and consisted of what is now Indonesia. To answer that question we need to learn more about Indonesia’s history. I guess the burning question here is, who was the first person to look at civet poop and see a hot cup of coffee instead? The civets eat the coffee cherries and the coffee is picked from the partially digested cherries in their poop. Asian Palm Civets are native to south and southeast Asia and this is why the coffee is known as either Kopi Luwak or Civet Cat Coffee. Kopi is Indonesian for coffee and Luwak is Indonesian for the civets which eat the coffee cherries. Kopi Luwak originates and is largely produced in Indonesia. What exactly is Kopi Luwak, where is it from, why is it so expensive, and how exactly is this coffee made? Discovery of Kopi Luwak So let’s delve deeper into this, friends. A pound of Kopi Luwak is sold at $600…I’ll say that again…$600 a pound. Not only was I shocked to learn how it was made, but I also balked at the price tag, which is funny given I was watching a show dedicated to finding the most expensive products. In the episode that I watched, 2 Chainz tries one of the most expensive coffees in the world: Kopi Luwak, which is essentially coffee made from poop. The show revolves around 2 Chainz trying some of the most expensive products in the world. I first came across Kopi Luwak when I was watching an episode of 2 Chainz’s show, Most Expensivest on Youtube.
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