Cupper Launches Column to Criticize Kopi Luwak and Black Ivory Coffee: Does Black Ivory Coffee Taste Good?

The Truth Behind Animal Coffees: A Call to Reject Kopi Luwak and Black Ivory

Ever since I first became involved with coffee, I have felt that kopi luwak, or civet coffee, is nothing more than a gimmick for people who do not understand coffee but want to show off. At this year's Shanghai Coffee Expo, Patrick Tam from Hong Kong shared many similar views. Speaking as a cupper, he laid out the truth behind so-called luxury coffees such as kopi luwak and elephant dung coffee. If you work in coffee, please pass this on and join us in rejecting kopi luwak and elephant dung coffee. The specialty coffee wave does not need products like these.

The Cruel Reality Behind Kopi Luwak and the Hypocrisy of Ivory

Newspaper reports recently described how a five-star hotel responded to PETA Asia-Pacific's call to stop selling kopi luwak produced through inhumane methods, once again drawing public attention to animal welfare. PETA sent undercover investigators deep into farms and documented the cruelty involved. From farmers they learned that mass-producing wild kopi luwak is nearly impossible. The "100% wild" label is a trick: civets are captured from the wild and kept in iron cages for three years, constantly fed coffee cherries and forced to excrete the beans. When they are released they may die from malnutrition, from psychological trauma, or simply from being unable to adapt to the wild again. Most importantly, from a cupper's point of view, the taste does not meet specialty standards.

The current consensus in the specialty coffee industry is simple: kopi luwak is inferior coffee.

Commercial Hype: Packaging Inferior Products as Premium

When an animal eats coffee cherries, the undigested pits undergo intestinal fermentation and are excreted. Beans processed this "natural" way were once collected from the mud by farmers and kept as a low-grade product for their own enjoyment. Through deliberate packaging and media embellishment they have since been turned into a delicacy. The public falls for the trick simply because it lacks awareness of what genuinely good coffee tastes like.

Grassy, Band-Aid Flavor and a Rough Texture

Local newspapers that describe kopi luwak with words like "fragrant" and "exquisite" only add to the legend. Lilly Kubota, communications manager of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), wrote back in 2011 and set out three conclusions: the best kopi luwak cannot compete with the lowest-scoring specialty coffee; the most authentic kopi luwak comes from civets trapped in cages; and most of what consumers buy is fake. That same year the cupper Stephen Vicks published a cupping report on a coffee website: "Of four samples, two showed moldy and phenolic defects respectively, while the other two reminded people of grass, medicinal bandages, iodine and raw oysters, with a rough texture." Consumers are paying for the story, not for quality.

Although the industry broadly accepts SCAA's position, some still refuse to give up the hope of making money from it. I know someone who obtained a cupper's qualification specifically to vindicate kopi luwak. Unfortunately, the off-flavors in the samples could never escape cupping evaluation.

Elephant Dung Coffee

As pressure from animal welfare groups mounted, a Canadian businessman drew inspiration from animal digestion and launched elephant dung coffee, later renamed Black Ivory Coffee. Production involves thirty elephants from the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation in northern Thailand. Besides grass and bananas, their daily feed includes Arabica coffee cherries in unspecified proportions.

Using elephants as processing machines is clever enough. Their size means they eat more than civets and produce more feces. The producers stress that elephants are vegetarian, boast that their digestive systems are purer, and claim that banana sugars released during the long fermentation reduce bitterness and enhance aroma. Adding coffee cherries to a vegetarian animal's feed is arguably kinder than forcing a carnivorous civet to become a vegetarian, but using that argument to prove that elephant dung is better than civet dung is not convincing. Producing 1 kilogram of elephant dung coffee requires 33 kilograms of coffee cherries, many of which are crushed or lost in the grass. Workers pick the beans out of the dung piles, wash them and remove defects. Such a rare food commands a high price: one pound of roasted beans costs $500, and it is currently available only at a few five-star resorts in the Maldives, Abu Dhabi and Thailand.

A Faint Grassy Flavor

The theory that intestinal enzymes can reduce bitterness-causing proteins does not survive scientific scrutiny. Coffee bitterness has many causes, from cultivation and processing to roasting and brewing, and every step contributes. Even if such bitterness-causing proteins existed, they would be reshaped by the Maillard reaction in a roaster reaching 200°C, changing flavor again and again: what was bitter could break down, while what was not bitter could turn bitter from scorching.

According to web advertisements, hotel staff must be trained by the bean seller before preparing each cup of $50 elephant dung coffee, performing with high-end Lido hand grinders and a 19th-century Belgian balancing siphon for the show. The grinder is indeed among the best hand grinders on the market today, but extracting with an antique Belgian siphon is like taking a math exam with an abacus: more spectacle than substance. Modern extraction pursues quantification, and an elaborate display is less crisp and efficient than a simple dripper, a scale and a kettle of water.

The company owner places great importance on online reviews. Whenever elephant dung coffee comes up on a coffee forum, he leaves comments under his real name promoting its benefits. Beyond the supposed selling points of low bitterness, rarity and humane treatment, he emphasizes that 8% of profits go to the elephant conservation facility that produces the coffee. The director of the benefiting foundation cooperates readily, issuing statements that the elephants are unaffected by caffeine because it stays locked inside the bean. This superfluous gesture backfires: the industry knows that from leaf to fruit the entire coffee cherry contains caffeine. Cascara, or coffee cherry tea, contains caffeine and comes from dried coffee fruit pulp. Caffeine is also highly water-soluble and will inevitably leach out during digestion. The Swiss water process, one way of making decaf, extracts caffeine from beans using water. The claim that caffeine is locked inside the bean only highlights the seller's ignorance.

The packaging states that the coffee has a faint grassy flavor. Perhaps the seller does not know that, in a cupper's eyes, grassy is a negative descriptor indicating improper roasting.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Anyone who wants clean, traceable flavor at a fair price should skip animal-processed gimmicks and start with a well-roasted single origin. FrontStreet Coffee's washed Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Gotingding Cooperative is a good first step: the washed process shows jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity, and a light-to-medium roast adds green tea and honey notes that work in pour-over, cold brew or espresso.

For a sweeter, fruit-forward profile, FrontStreet's sun-dried Ethiopia Huakui, from the Hambella area of Guji, is naturally processed with traditional raised-bed drying. It brings out tropical fruit aromas such as berry, jackfruit, melon and honey with a low bitterness and a smooth, juicy body.

Drinkers who prefer something rounder and less acidic can turn to FrontStreet's Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon, a classic Brazilian single origin that is medium roasted to show creamy peanut, toasted bread, caramel and hazelnut notes. It has a rounded, low-acid body with a mild bitterness and works equally well in pour-over, moka pot, siphon or French press.