How to Brew Kopi Luwak? How Much Does a Cup of Kopi Luwak Cost? How Was Kopi Luwak Discovered?

The Natural Diet of Civets

Captive civets are sometimes fed nothing but coffee cherries, but in the wild they also eat fruits, insects, and reptiles.

The World's Most Expensive Coffee

The world's most expensive coffee is made from feces - more precisely, from coffee beans that have been eaten by civets, partially digested, and then excreted. This civet coffee does not come cheap: in the United States it can cost up to $80 per cup.

The Asian Palm Civet

The Asian palm civet is distributed across southern India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and southern China. In Sri Lanka it is considered a nuisance, because the animals defecate on ceilings and indoors, and often make noise that disturbs people's sleep.

The Fermentation Process

Indonesian palm civets feed heavily on coffee beans. Fermentation in their stomachs breaks down proteins into short peptides and more free amino acids, which reduces the coffee's bitterness. The excreted droppings then become the raw ingredient.

Civets in the Ecosystem

Civets inhabit Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. They have monkey-like long tails, raccoon-like facial markings, and striped or spotted bodies. They play an important role in the food chain: they eat not only coffee cherries and mangoes but also insects and small reptiles, while being preyed upon by cheetahs, large snakes, and crocodiles.

From Nuisance to Commodity

Originally, the civet coffee trade did no harm to these animals. The Asian palm civet, a species native to Southeast Asia, would raid commercial orchards in Indonesia and was often regarded as a pest by locals. The booming civet coffee industry therefore actually encouraged locals to protect the animals in order to obtain their precious droppings. The digestive enzymes in a civet's body change the structure of proteins in the coffee beans, removing some of the acidity and making the coffee smoother.

The Dark Side of Civet Coffee

However, as civet coffee grew popular and Indonesia became a destination for wildlife tourism, more and more wild civets were confined to cages in coffee plantations - partly for coffee production, but also to profit from civet tourism.

The Production Process

Since the beans cannot be digested, they are excreted; after washing and roasting, they become civet coffee. One kilogram costs approximately $400.

Diet and Authenticity

Palm civets are omnivores. Besides seeds, they also eat insects, snakes, birds, and amphibians. The droppings of truly wild palm civets are therefore mixed with all sorts of substances.

Farmed vs. Wild

Local Indonesian farmers capture and raise palm civets, feeding them coffee beans to produce civet coffee. It is said, however, that there is a real difference between the farmed and the wild product.

The Selection Factor

The special quality of civet coffee lies in the fact that wild civets carefully choose their coffee cherries; when they are confined to cages and fed random fruit, the resulting coffee is not exceptionally good.

Rarity and Authenticity

Civet coffee production is extremely limited and correspondingly expensive, and very few places sell it. Even in Indonesia, its country of origin, it is rarely seen. Most civet coffee on the market therefore comes from farmed civets, and its flavor naturally differs from that of the most original, natural wild civet coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Recommendations for Civet Coffee:

V60 / 1:15 / 90°C / total time: one minute and fifty seconds

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If Kopi Luwak has piqued your interest in Indonesian coffee, there is no need to gamble on caged civets to enjoy the archipelago's finest flavors. Indonesia's best growing regions - Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi - produce signature coffees of their own, and Sumatra's Mandheling is the crown jewel.

FrontStreet Coffee's wet-hulled Mandheling, from the Lake Toba area of Lintong, shows everything wild about Indonesian processing: the parchment is stripped while the beans are still half-dry, yielding the classic grassy, spicy, earthy depth. Roasted medium-dark, it is low in acidity with caramel, dark chocolate, and toasted-bread aromas and a long sweet finish. For the pinnacle, the FrontStreet PWN Golden Mandheling is sorted to the strictest standards by density, size, shape, and color with machine screening plus repeated hand selection, giving a clean, mellow, richly layered cup of sandalwood, herb, spice, roasted hazelnut, caramel, and dark chocolate.

Brew any of these the same way FrontStreet Coffee brews rare and precious beans: a V60, 15g of coffee, water at 90°C, a 1:15 ratio, and a total brew time of about one minute fifty seconds - gentle handling that lets their wild, syrupy character shine.