How to Drink Indonesian Luwak Civet Coffee? What Indonesian Coffee Brands Are Recommended?

Indonesian Coffee Overview

Indonesia's total coffee production ranks among the highest in the world, with balanced scales of both Arabica and Robusta and a range of qualities from affordable to premium.

Indonesia is also a country composed of 17,508 islands, making it the world's largest archipelagic nation. It can be rather hard to grasp the actual territorial scope of Indonesia.

Common Indonesian Coffee Varieties

Common Indonesian coffees fall into three main types: "Sumatran Mandheling," "Sulawesi Toraja," "Java" and "Civet Coffee."

Sumatra, Sumatran Mandheling, Mandheling and the rest are all standardised to the island of Sumatra. Sumatra is the world's sixth-largest island.

From a geographical perspective, the premium coffee production areas for Sumatran Mandheling are primarily Aceh Province in the north and North Sumatra Province, south of Aceh.

Aceh Province's cultivation history is over thirty years earlier than North Sumatra's. Aceh's annual production is about 30,000 tons, while North Sumatra's current production is nearly 50,000 tons.

The History of Sumatran Coffee

Coffee cultivation in Sumatra dates back to the 18th century, when Indonesia was under Dutch colonial rule and Arabica coffee was introduced for cultivation.

It was not until World War II, when Japanese forces advanced steadily southward and reached Sumatra, that a Japanese soldier drank the local coffee. Its rich, complex flavour captivated him and he exclaimed in surprise, "Where is this coffee from?"

He spoke Japanese, however, and the local Mandailing people, through gestures, thought he was asking about their ethnicity, so they replied, "Mandheling, Mandheling!"

The Japanese soldier then thought the coffee was grown in Mandheling.

After World War II ended, the man remembered the coffee he had drunk in Sumatra and commissioned an Indonesian merchant to ship about fifteen tons of coffee to Japan. Unexpectedly, the flavour he introduced became extremely popular in Japan, establishing its status as the "king of beans" until Jamaican Blue Mountain emerged.

Java and Sulawesi Toraja were also introduced for cultivation during the same period. Java coffee is now predominantly Robusta and will not be discussed further here.

Sulawesi Toraja shares similar flavour characteristics with Mandheling, but the Japanese soldier had tasted coffee from Sumatra rather than Sulawesi, and so Sulawesi missed its opportunity for fame. Because of these different destinies, Sumatra received abundant agricultural investment, and even Japan's UCC established direct farms there, making today's Mandheling quality even better.

Civet Coffee (Kopi Luwak)

The origin of civet coffee is mainly on the island of Java. It is produced when an animal of the Viverridae family, genus Paradoxurus, commonly known as the common palm civet, musang or civet cat, eats coffee cherries and excretes the remaining beans after digestion.

The principle is similar to drinking mulberry leaf tea made from silkworm droppings, aiming to use the fermentation effect of stomach acid to create special flavours through the biological digestive system.

Civets are omnivores rather than purely herbivorous animals, so when the production process cannot be guaranteed safe there are indeed concerns about consuming accumulated waste products.

After civet coffee became famous, various regions around the world began using different animals to process coffee in the same way. Thailand, for example, has elephants eat coffee beans and excrete the fruit to produce "elephant coffee," which also commands a high price.

The most legendary, rarest and most premium bean known as "Kopi Luwak" is not harvested manually but selected by Indonesia's wild Luwak civets through their appetite, choosing the highest quality beans for coffee connoisseurs.

In Indonesian, "Kopi" means "coffee," while "Luwak" refers to a tree-dwelling wild animal commonly known as the "civet cat," with the scientific name Paradoxurus hermaphroditus. This is different from Taiwan's so-called civet cat. Both belong to the Viverridae family but to different subfamilies, one Paradoxurinae and the other Viverridae. Luwak belongs to Palm Civet, translated as palm cat; Viverridae belongs to Civet, translated as civet cat or musang, but both are commonly called civet cats.

Kopi Luwak is produced on the Indonesian islands of Java (Jawa), Sumatra (Sumatera) and Sulawesi (Sulawesi).

Since Luwak civets range across low to medium altitudes, most of the coffee involved is Robusta, while high-altitude Arabica is even rarer. Luwak civets are nocturnal. When foraging at night they use a keen sense of smell to select only the most mature, sweet, plump and juicy coffee fruits from the trees. The fruits pass through the enzymes of the digestive system, which break down the outer pulp, but the hard beans remain undigested and are excreted unchanged. During digestion the civet's stomach acid breaks down the beans' bitter substances, the proteins, and special intestinal bacteria ferment them, producing an unparalleled transformation. The flavour becomes unique, with a particularly fragrant and rich taste and a full-bodied sweetness that no other bean can match. Indonesians therefore collect the beans excreted by Luwak civets after fermentation and, through collection, drying, washing, hulling, selection and roasting, create the world's rarest, most unique and most precious coffee. This is Kopi Luwak, worth $600 per pound, once a tribute presented by Indonesia to the Dutch royal family. It is said that the British royal family loves its rich flavour, and that in various five-star hotels a cup of Kopi Luwak costs $30.

Today Indonesia remains the world's only source of Kopi Luwak coffee, but the number of Luwak civets foraging in coffee plantations has decreased, making the coffee they "produce" even rarer and more valuable.

Besides coffee fruits, Luwak civets also like to eat cacao, bananas and papayas. Simply finding their droppings is not easy. Luwak droppings are usually buried in soil and fallen leaves, making them hard to spot, and even experienced collectors may mistake squirrel or bat droppings for those of the civet.

In Indonesia, Luwak civets find survival increasingly difficult because human population growth has reduced their habitat. For their livelihood, farmers have extensively cleared slopes to plant pepper, cacao, coffee and rubber trees.

On the other hand, civets roam freely in orchards, eating not only coffee fruits but other fruits as well, and some more aggressive individuals even attack farmers' chickens. If they grow to over 100 pounds, their sharp claws, teeth and size appear quite frightening. Their meat is also considered delicious, and locals are happy to hunt them.

FrontStreet Coffee suggests that when brewing Indonesian Luwak civet coffee you use a water temperature between 86 and 88 degrees Celsius, a slightly coarser grind of coarse sugar size, and a coffee-to-water ratio of 1:13 to 1:14 to preserve its rich flavour profile.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If what attracts you to Indonesian coffee is the heavy body and earthy, herbal depth that Sumatra is known for, FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling line is the place to start. The FrontStreet Lintong Mandheling comes from the traditional Lintong region around Lake Toba, in the part of Sumatra that gave Mandheling its name, and it is roasted medium-dark; the result keeps the low acidity the style is famous for while offering a rich, full body with clove and woody aromas, a spice and mint note on the palate and a strong, lasting sweetness. The FrontStreet PWN Golden Mandheling sits a step above, produced by the Indonesian company PWN to a strict standard: beans are selected at 18 screen or above, each 300 grams of green sample must contain fewer than three defects to qualify for the highest G1 grade, and the coffee then passes through three rounds of hand sorting, which raises both its cleanliness and the intensity of its sweetness.

Both are made for drinkers who prefer depth to fruit. FrontStreet finds that pour-over shows the Golden Mandheling at its best, using water at 87 to 88 degrees Celsius, 15 grams of coffee at a 1:15 ratio and a grind about the texture of coarse sugar. Pour in three stages: bloom with 30ml to wet all the grounds and let them degas, add 100ml in the second pour to lift the golden foam and raise the bed, then finish with a gentle 95ml pour down the centre to lift the sweetness, giving a thick, rounded cup with caramel, chocolate and nut flavours. If you want Mandheling on an espresso machine, the FrontStreet Classic blend adds a medium-dark Mandheling to the creamy nut flavours of Brazilian coffee so that butter, roast chestnut and caramel come forward, with the Mandheling lifting the body and lending sandalwood, herbal and spice notes.