How to Process Kopi Luwak Coffee Beans_Authentic Kopi Luwak Coffee Price Per Cup_How to Buy Kopi Luwak Coffee

Professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

Because the civet cat's intestinal secretions have a special fragrance, and after coffee beans enter the stomach, proteins are slowly digested, producing short peptides and more free amino acids, which significantly reduces the bitterness of coffee beans. This entire process modifies the aroma of coffee beans, giving them a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

This is kopi luwak coffee bean.

Kopi luwak—is this "shit thing" really worth that much money? Tony Wild was the first person to bring kopi luwak into public view, but now he is calling on all of us to boycott this luxury product together.

Kopi luwak, also known as civet coffee, can be called the most expensive coffee in the world.

1. The "Accidental Rise" of Kopi Luwak

Over the past 20 years, kopi luwak has been the "ultimate coffee," valued by coffee vendors worldwide as a treasure for its excellent taste and rarity, even appearing on CNN news, The Oprah Show, and in Hollywood movies.

I first read about kopi luwak in a 1981 issue of National Geographic magazine. Ten years later, in 1991, as Coffee Director for Taylors of Harrogate in Britain, I was the first to introduce kopi luwak to the Western world. At that time, I only bought one kilogram and didn't sell it through the company. Instead, I thought perhaps this novelty might interest local newspapers and radio stations in Yorkshire where the company was based—which now seems quite naive. The result far exceeded my expectations—newspapers, television, and radio stations all covered it extensively. From then on, kopi luwak gradually entered public consciousness.

Palm civets roam Indonesian coffee plantations, and kopi luwak comes from their feces.

2. Real Kopi Luwak is Not a Commercially Viable Crop, Just an Interesting Coffee Curiosity

Genuine Indonesian kopi luwak is collected from the feces of a local wild animal called the palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The palm civet is a shy, solitary nocturnal animal that visits coffee plantations during harvest season, eating ripe coffee cherries under cover of night. However, they cannot digest the seeds—the coffee beans—and excrete them in their feces. These coffee beans, having passed through the palm civet's digestive tract and anal glands (which they use to mark territory), are collected by farm workers, cleaned, and develop a unique, widely acclaimed flavor. At that time, because palm civets were wild and scarce, their droppings were difficult to collect, and the quality of coffee beans harvested at different times varied. Therefore, kopi luwak was not a commercially viable crop, just an interesting coffee curiosity—which was why I bought it.

How a cup of kopi luwak is made: Palm civets eat coffee cherries and excrete the undigested seeds. These beans wrapped in feces are then cleaned and dried, becoming the invaluable kopi luwak coffee.

3. The Origin of Kopi Luwak Has Been Exploited as a Gimmick, Now Mostly Comes from Caged Palm Civets

But now, it's difficult to find truly wild-origin kopi luwak. Today's kopi luwak mostly comes from wild palm civets kept in cages, and they are generally kept in poor conditions. A Japanese scientist recently claimed to have invented a method to distinguish real from fake kopi luwak, but it would be better if he could invent a method to determine whether coffee beans come from wild or caged palm civets.

Many coffee companies worldwide still use the original story about wild animal digestive habits as a gimmick to sell kopi luwak. Many companies claim they can only collect 500 kilograms of kopi luwak annually, using this scarcity to justify their expensive prices (kopi luwak typically sells for $200-400 per kilogram, sometimes even more). In reality, while exact figures are unavailable, I estimate that the global annual production of kopi luwak is at least 50 tons—possibly much more. Now farmers in India, Vietnam, China, and the Philippines have also joined the kopi luwak production ranks.

One Indonesian farm claims that using 240 caged palm civets, they can produce 7,000 kilograms of kopi luwak annually.

4. Kopi Luwak Has Become an Industrial Product, with Palm Civets Treated Cruelly

Today's Indonesian kopi luwak is basically an industrially produced product; authentic wild-origin is nearly impossible. Sounds disgusting, doesn't it? Indeed it does. These shy, solitary creatures are forced to crowd into cages with their own kind, causing them immense stress. Their abnormal diet, overly focused on coffee cherries, also leads to other health problems. Caged palm civets begin fighting with each other, even biting off their own legs. Their droppings become bloody, and death is common.

In Indonesia, trapping wild palm civets should be strictly controlled, but poachers capture them and put them in cages, force-feeding them coffee cherries to excrete more feces containing coffee beans—all for huge profits and to satisfy certain people's hypocritical pleasures.

The kopi luwak business has achieved tremendous success, especially among extravagant consumers. If you're wondering what birthday gift to prepare for your wealthy friend, how about spending £6,500 at Harrods (Britain's most famous and prestigious department store) for some kopi luwak packaged in 24K gold foil? Actually, what you're buying is no longer kopi luwak—just like today's globally popular Thai elephant dung coffee and Brazilian bird dung coffee, they only serve to satisfy people's insatiable desire for bizarre, superficial vanity.

A caged palm civet at a farm in Surabaya, Indonesia.

5. Kopi Luwak Should Not Come at the Expense of Wildlife—It's Time to Stop Artificially Farmed Production

My single casual purchase back then led to such incredible developments. When I introduced kopi luwak to Britain, it was just a quirky little story, but now it has become overpriced and over-industrialized. People use it to wear a hypocritical veil, covering their distorted tastes and meaningless vanity. I hope everyone will think about this: satisfying our own tastes should not come at the expense of wildlife. This cancer cannot continue—it's time to stop it.

Recommended Kopi Luwak Coffee Bean Brands

FrontStreet Coffee's wild kopi luwak coffee beans offer full guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, they offer exceptional value—a 100-gram bag costs around 250 RMB. Calculating at 15 grams per single-origin coffee cup, one bag can make 6 cups, with each cup costing only 40-50 RMB. Compared to café prices that often exceed 100 RMB per cup, this represents excellent value.

FrontStreet Coffee: A Guangzhou-based coffee roastery with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find both famous and lesser-known beans. They also provide online shop services: https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473