Is Bali Kopi Luwak Delicious? Which Bali Coffee Brand is Best? Bali Coffee Prices

Many people have been to Bali, and plenty of them know about Balinese coffee. Far fewer, though, connect the two with Kopi Luwak. Today's topic: next time a friend heads to Bali, don't forget to bring me some Kopi Luwak as a homecoming gift—

What Is Civet Coffee?

Inside the civet's digestive system, only the fruit pulp on the outer surface is broken down. The extremely hard coffee beans pass through unchanged and are excreted.

That digestive process works a kind of magic on the beans, producing a flavor that is hard to match: exceptionally aromatic and mellow, with a rich, rounded sweetness that other coffees simply cannot compare with.

The civet's digestive system breaks down the proteins in the beans, which reduces the bitterness those proteins cause while adding to the rounded body. Wild civets are also noticeably better at picking out the best coffee cherries, and that is part of what gives this coffee its extraordinary character.

Where It Comes From

Kopi Luwak is produced in Indonesia and is one of the most expensive coffees in the world. Indonesia grows coffee on a large scale, and its forests are home to the civet, an omnivore with a pointed muzzle and dark grey fur. Its favorite food is fresh coffee cherries, which ferment and digest inside its body before being excreted.

What comes out is a string of coffee beans—by some accounts, the most expensive droppings in the world. Because the supply is so scarce, the price is very high. Civets are found across the Indochinese Peninsula, northeastern India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, and the Kashmir region, but only the Bali and Sumatran civets—the Indonesian civets—can produce Kopi Luwak.

Once processed and roasted, Kopi Luwak becomes a luxury coffee that has spread to discerning markets around the world. Chasing high profits, local farmers have captured wild civets and raised them at home to produce more of it. Coffee from farmed civets is, however, correspondingly weaker in both appearance and taste. Even so, output remains extremely limited and beyond the reach of many coffee lovers.

The coffee comes from the droppings of an animal known in Indonesia as the civet. Odd as that origin sounds, one sip delivers a mouthful of sweetness and fragrance, with a sugary note that is hard to describe.

Wild civets prefer plump, juicy coffee cherries, but the hard cores—the raw beans—cannot be digested and pass out with the waste. Once cleaned, they become Kopi Luwak green beans. That is why so many people call it "cat poop" coffee.

Indonesians discovered that beans fermented in the civet's stomach were especially thick and fragrant, so they began collecting the droppings, sifting out the beans, and brewing them. Scarce supply and a unique fermentation give the cup a flavor quite unlike ordinary coffee.

Traditionally, coffee cherries are washed or sun-dried to strip away the skin, pulp, and parchment layer before the bean is extracted. Luwak instead relies on the civet's natural fermentation, and that is where its particular flavor comes from.

It is said that early Indonesian farmers treated the civets that fed on ripe coffee cherries as pests. At some point, someone thought to pick the beans out of civet droppings and brew them into a coffee with a flavor all its own. Coffee experts from many places tried it and praised it warmly. Ever since, during the ripening season, local farmers have spent long hours in the forest every day collecting civet droppings.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Kopi Luwak's appeal lies in its unusual fermentation and its thick, rounded body, and if that profile is what you are after, Indonesian coffee is the place to look. FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesian Wet-Hulled Mandheling comes from the Lintong region around Lake Toba and is roasted medium-dark; the wet-hulled process gives it the classic herbal and spice character, with low acidity and a full, mellow body carrying caramel, dark chocolate, and toast. For a step up, the FrontStreet PWN Golden Mandheling is sorted three times by hand plus once by machine, leaving large, even, translucent beans that roast medium-dark into sandalwood, herbs, spice, roasted hazelnut, caramel, and dark chocolate—clean and rich at once.