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

Indonesian Coffee Overview

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

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

Common Indonesian Coffee Varieties

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

Sumatra, Sumatran Mandheling, Mandheling, and others are all standardized 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 (abbreviated as North Sumatra) south of Aceh Province.

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

The History of Sumatran Coffee

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

It wasn't until World War II, when Japanese forces continuously advanced southward and arrived in Sumatra, that a Japanese soldier drank the local coffee. Its rich and complex flavor captivated him, and he exclaimed in Japanese surprise, "Where is this coffee from?"

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

The Japanese then thought the coffee was grown in Mandheling.

After World War II ended, this Japanese man remembered the coffee he had drunk in Sumatra and commissioned an Indonesian merchant to transport about fifteen tons of coffee to Japan. Unexpectedly, this flavor 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 elaborated further.

Sulawesi Toraja shares similar flavor characteristics with Mandheling, but the Japanese soldier had tasted coffee from Sumatra, not Sulawesi, thus missing the opportunity for fame. Due to 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 Java Island. It is produced when an animal from the Viverridae family, Paradoxurus genus—commonly known as the common palm civet, musang, or civet cat—eats coffee cherries and excretes the remaining coffee 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 flavors through the biological digestive system.

Civets are omnivores, not 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. For example, Thailand also has elephants eat coffee beans and excrete coffee fruits to produce "elephant coffee," which also commands a high price.

The most legendary, rarest, and premium coffee bean known as "Kopi Luwak" is not harvested manually but is selected by Indonesia's wild Luwak civets (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. However, this is different from Taiwan's so-called civet cat. They both belong to the Viverridae family but different subfamilies—one is Paradoxurinae, the other is 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 in the Indonesian islands of Java (Jawa), Sumatra (Sumatera), and Sulawesi (Sulawesi).

Since Luwak civets' activity range is in low to medium altitudes, most coffee varieties are Robusta beans, while high-altitude Arabica beans are even rarer. Luwak civets are nocturnal animals. When Luwak civets forage at night, they use their keen sense of smell to select only the most mature, sweet, plump, and juicy coffee fruits from coffee trees. The fruits pass through their digestive system's enzymes, which break down the outer pulp, but the hard beans remain undigested and are excreted unchanged. During digestion, the Luwak civet's stomach acid breaks down the coffee beans' bitter substances—"proteins"—and special intestinal bacteria ferment them, creating unparalleled changes. Its flavor becomes unique, with a particularly fragrant and rich taste, and its full-bodied sweet flavor is incomparable to other coffee beans. Thus, Indonesians collect the coffee beans excreted by Luwak civets after fermentation, and through steps of collection, drying, washing, hulling, selection, and roasting, they create the world's rarest, most unique, and most precious coffee. This is the Kopi Luwak coffee, worth $600 per pound, which was once a tribute presented by Indonesia to the Dutch royal family. It is said that not only does the British royal family love its rich flavor, but 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 "produced" coffee beans even rarer and more valuable.

Besides coffee fruits, Luwak civets also like to eat fruits such as cacao, bananas, and papayas. Simply finding their droppings is not easy. Usually, Luwak civet droppings are buried in soil and fallen leaves, making them difficult to spot. Even experienced collectors of Kopi Luwak might mistake squirrel or bat droppings for those of Luwak civets.

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

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

FrontStreet Coffee suggests when brewing Indonesian Luwak civet coffee, use water temperature between 86-88°C, grind slightly coarser (coarse sugar size), and use a coffee-to-water ratio of 1:13-1:14 to preserve its rich flavor profile.

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