Civet Coffee Brewing Guide Illustrated Indonesian Kopi Luwak Bean Flavor Characteristics Story

Kopi Luwak: The World's Most Expensive Coffee

Kopi Luwak is known as "the world's most expensive coffee," and Indonesia is one of the main producers of this prized coffee. Coming from Indonesia, Kopi Luwak (in Indonesian: Kopi means coffee, Luwak means civet) is known in America as Civet coffee or the notorious "cat poo coffee."

For more specialty coffee knowledge, please follow the official WeChat account: FrontStreet Coffee

Coffee lovers generally know that Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is among the finest coffees, but do you know what the world's most expensive coffee is? The title undoubtedly goes to Kopi Luwak (Indonesian civet coffee). As rarity dictates value, one pound of Kopi Luwak coffee beans retails for at least six hundred dollars, earning it the nickname "the Rolls-Royce of coffee."

Kopi Luwak (also known as cat poop coffee) has limited annual production, making it a favorite among the wealthy. When first trying civet coffee, FrontStreet Coffee noted its special herbal aroma and excellent body.

History - European Greed and Farmers' Discovery

Historically speaking, why would anyone search for coffee in feces? This question seems puzzling, but through historical records, we can find the reasons and discoverers behind this phenomenon.

During the Age of Sail, European powers sought to acquire more land worldwide. Taiwan was once an island colonized by the Dutch and Spanish, while Indonesia - the island of civets - was also occupied by the Dutch, who even established the so-called "East India Company," a government institution wielding enormous power.

Indonesian farmers, under threat of force, became cheap labor for the Dutch. Initially, they cultivated spices, and later shifted to coffee. Tropical Indonesian crops were very popular in Europe, earning the Dutch substantial silver profits. During the Age of Sail, which country didn't treat locals this way? Many European nations established certain foundations back then, and now they may only know that their ancestors once led the world...

Yet farmers had never tasted the coffee they grew themselves - a problem that still exists today. At that time, farmers dared not secretly pick crops, as discovery meant severe punishment. However, curiosity cannot be stopped. When someone discovered coffee beans remaining in civet feces, they found that after processing, it produced excellent coffee. It seemed they could finally understand why the Western world loved coffee so much - even beans picked from animal feces tasted so good.

The good times didn't last. When the Dutch learned of this matter, collecting civet coffee became new work, and that special flavor of coffee could no longer be enjoyed.

Bean Source: Wild or Farmed?

All this is merely for a luxury item, and a second-rate one at that. Experts say the uniqueness of civet coffee lies in wild civets selectively choosing coffee fruits; but keeping them in cages and feeding them random coffee fruits won't produce particularly good results.

Furthermore, a coffee expert stated in an article for the Specialty Coffee Association of America that civet coffee wasn't particularly good to begin with: although the civet's digestive process does make coffee smoother, it also removes good acidity and flavors - which are the characteristics of specialty coffee.

Currently, there's no method to distinguish whether civet coffee beans come from wild or captive civets. In a 2013 undercover investigation, BBC discovered that some European coffee labeled as wild civet actually came from inhumanely treated captive civets.

Even Tony Wild, the coffee trader who introduced civet coffee to the West, stated in a British Guardian article that civet coffee should not be consumed. He said this coffee has become increasingly industrialized, more abusive to animals, and frequently counterfeit. Today, no certification system can prove that "wild" coffee is truly wild; additionally, other coffee certification organizations ensure reliable coffee cultivation and production, but these institutions refuse to certify civet coffee.

The Rainforest Alliance, based in New York, and other well-known coffee certification organizations issue certification marks based on Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) standards; these standards prohibit farms from hunting wild animals, and SAN's regulations for Indonesian coffee explicitly prohibit caged civets.

UTZ is another important sustainable coffee certification standard that also prohibits farms from keeping wild animals in cages and refuses to certify civet coffee.

Alex Morgan of the Rainforest Alliance said that certifying civet coffee is too risky because there's truly no way to ensure the beans' source is 100% wild. He said: "My personal recommendation is to avoid this coffee as much as possible - it usually comes from caged animals."

Indonesian Sumatra Kopi Luwak Specialty Coffee

Among all civet coffees, the most expensive is Indonesian wild beans, followed by Philippine, with Vietnamese being cheaper. There are also so-called "Grade A" civet coffees on the market, where coffee beans are excreted by artificially fed civets, or possibly even other animals. Wild civets live naturally, freely selecting beans. Because these cats are picky eaters - they don't eat bad quality, only choosing perfectly ripe fruits and avoiding overripe ones - so the coffee beans they select are always the highest quality, without defects. Farmed varieties don't have this guarantee, and the excreted beans vary in quality. Coffee beans are evaluated by experts and international buyers through cupping for aroma and concentration. Ordinary consumers find it difficult to determine the true quality of coffee from packaging appearance alone.

Actually, the principle is quite simple: using lactic acid bacteria and digestive fluids from the animal's digestive tract to replace machines or washing methods to remove pulp and pectin attached to the bean surface. These beans are excreted with feces, and after washing, become precious internally fermented beans one by one. Besides the commonly heard civet, this coffee processing method also involves birds like guans, monkeys, and elephants, but the latter few haven't formed commercial scale - only civet coffee stands alone.

Civets mainly inhabit tropical rainforests and subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest margins below 2100 meters altitude in hilly and mountainous areas, selecting rock caves, soil holes, or tree holes as habitat sites.

Civets have varied diets. Animal foods include small mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, crustaceans, and insects such as rodents, small birds, snakes, frogs, fish, crabs, bird eggs, insects, earthworms, and wild fowl. Plant foods include stems and leaves of Solanaceae plants, seeds of various figs, and fruits like trash fruit and winter cherry. However, civets have poor plant digestion ability, so eating berries is essentially their dessert, while their main food is meat.

Because their plant digestion ability is poor, they mainly live in broadleaf forests, shrublands, and agricultural areas of South and Southeast Asia. These areas are also suitable environments for coffee tree growth, so many winter cherries eaten by civets are actually coffee berries. Civets can only digest the skin and pulp parts of the berries, while the fruit pit inside - the coffee bean - is eventually excreted.

These coffee beans are typically mainly Robusta variety because civets operate in low to medium altitude areas, so most coffee varieties are Robusta. High-altitude Arabica civet coffee production is rare. Indonesia's low-altitude Robusta coffee originally carries earthy and herbal medicine flavors, with high body. Therefore, this civet coffee has the earthy taste of aged beans with body almost approaching syrup, and very special aroma. If you prefer the earthy flavors of Indonesian aged coffee or Indian monsooned coffee, you might fall in love with this flavored civet coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee's Perspective on Civet Coffee

In recent years, many people have begun boycotting civet coffee due to cruelty issues. But the reality is, civet coffee itself is not wrong - the original production of civet coffee beans was just a very natural phenomenon. In their most natural environment, civets eat the most suitable food, choosing their own selected coffee berries - ripe fruits with high sugar content - then excreting the coffee beans they cannot digest. This is animal nature and a very natural occurrence.

Early on, local people collected wild civet feces in forests, extracting undigested coffee seeds and processing them into green beans. Due to limited production and unique internal fermentation methods, many businessmen later targeted the business opportunity, beginning large-scale capture and caging of civets. The naturally carnivorous civets could only eat coffee berries, but the nutritional content in coffee berries cannot maintain civets' health.

They believe that although coffee beans weren't digested in the civet's digestive tract, the highly corrosive digestive fluids corroded their surface. These digestive fluids contain special proteases that can break down the original protein chains of coffee beans, decomposing long-chain proteins into small particles, forming short-chain peptides and amino acids.

But in reality, because they only eat coffee berries long-term, civets excrete coffee beans perhaps just one or two hours after consumption. One or two hours in a civet's stomach is insufficient to produce the series of changes mentioned above. The bean remains essentially the same as when eaten, and even if there are flavor changes, they are minimal.

FrontStreet Coffee can say that the formation of civet coffee itself is not problematic. Civets use their noses to identify ripe coffee fruits - Ethiopia's red cherries are also harvested from fully ripe coffee, both working on the same principle. The problem lies with those who cage civets, forcing them to eat coffee berries regardless of ripeness just to increase civet coffee production, leading to these cruel incidents. This no longer falls within the coffee category we discuss.

What Other Indonesian Specialty Coffees Are Worth Trying?

Indonesian Mandheling coffee's flavor profile features low acidity, mellow taste, and strong bitterness, perfectly matching people's traditional perception of coffee. Among them, the premium version - Golden Mandheling coffee - undergoes multiple careful selections, giving the coffee rich dark chocolate, caramel, and nutty flavors, while its unique herbal and spicy notes become clearer.

"FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling" is an exclusive brand of Indonesia's Pwani Coffee Company (PWN). There are many different types of Mandheling products on the market. Since PWN registered "Golden Mandheling" as their company trademark, only Golden Mandheling coffee produced by PWN is truly Golden Mandheling in the genuine sense. Everyone can identify authentic Golden Mandheling by the green bean bags with PWN logo and a certificate of origin signed by PWN company. FrontStreet Coffee displays these two identifiers in their Dongshankou store.

When the Japanese took interest in Sumatran coffee for long-term purchasing, they gradually discovered that local bean quality often varied. They became more involved in Mandheling production, establishing strict standards and methods for screening defects, starting with bean density, size, shape, color values, etc. The resulting Mandheling requires machine plus manual defect removal to ensure the produced Mandheling beans are complete, uniform, large, and translucent, while reducing earthy and grassy flavors. Legend says it shone golden under the sun, earning the name "Golden Mandheling."

Indonesian green bean grading is primarily based on defect counts, with size being secondary. General quality requirements include no live insects, no moldy or rotten beans, maximum moisture content of 12.5%, and impurity rate less than 0.5%. According to defect rates, they are divided into six grades, with the highest grade G1 requiring fewer than 11 defective beans in a 300g sample. The Lindong Mandheling coffee in FrontStreet Coffee's daily selection series is G1, using wet-hulled processing method, representing the conventional Indonesian Mandheling flavor.

PWN company, which excels in selection, purchases Mandheling green beans above 18 screen size, with G1 grade having fewer than 3 defective beans in 300g samples - Indonesia's highest green bean grade. Subsequently, they strictly follow standards for 1 machine selection + 3 manual defect selections, ensuring uniform Mandheling coffee bean shape and size. Additionally, before packaging, PWN places green beans in machines for density and color sorting, making Golden Mandheling uniformly translucent in color.

How FrontStreet Coffee Brews Civet Coffee

■ Origin: Sumatra, Indonesia
■ Varieties: Timtim, Typica, Catimor
■ Processing Method: Internal Fermentation

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Parameters

Dripper: KONO
Bean weight: 15 grams
Water ratio: 1:15
Water temperature: 87°C
Grind size: Sugar-like coarseness

Frontsteet Brewing Method

Segmented Extraction
Use 30g of water for 30-second bloom, then continue pouring with small circular motions to 125g. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed again, remove the dripper. (Timing starts from bloom) Extraction time: 2'00"

Civet Coffee Flavor Description: Herbal, nutty, dark chocolate, fermented notes.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473