Must-Buy Coffee in Indonesia: How to Identify Authentic Civet Coffee - A Complete Guide

FrontStreet Coffee - How to Identify Real and Fake Kopi Luwak

As the value of Kopi Luwak has climbed, many places in Indonesia have begun caging civets and force-feeding them coffee beans. Some simply feed coffee beans to civets and pass the result off as genuine Kopi Luwak.

How Do You Identify Real Civet Coffee?

Characteristics of Kopi Luwak Flavor:

1. The distinctive body odor of the civet itself.
2. The digestive process consumes a large amount of sugar.

That body odor is quite distinctive and cannot be replicated. As for the sugar loss, what flavor effect does it have? With less sugar, less bitterness forms during caramelization in the roast. A special aroma without bitterness is what makes many people find it delicious - and delicious plus rare means expensive.

This is why many people use ordinary civets in place of palm civets to create what they claim is Kopi Luwak.

For authentic Kopi Luwak raw beans, pay attention to the shape: they should be clean and easily separable.

Summary

Palm civets feed primarily on coffee berries during the bean maturation season. After complete digestion, the sugar is consumed, and the beans in the droppings lose their stickiness. The beans do not stick to one another, and once dried they separate quickly into loose, individually distributed beans.

Knowledge Point

In the early 18th century, the Dutch established coffee plantations in their Indonesian colonies of Sumatra and Java, where ripe coffee beans became a favorite food of the civet.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If what you are really after is the deep, unusual character of Indonesian coffee, you can skip the rarity chase entirely and go straight to a well-made Sumatran lot. FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling comes from the Lintong area around Lake Toba in Sumatra and uses the region's classic wet-hulled process, in which the parchment is stripped while the bean is still half-dry, leaving the green bean fully exposed to the air. That is what gives the coffee its typical herbal and spice character.

To bring out the classic Mandheling profile, the beans are roasted medium-dark, producing a low-acid, full-bodied cup with rich caramel, dark chocolate and toasted bread aromas and a long, sweet finish. It is a natural choice for anyone who likes a strong coffee.

For the top of the range, FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling is screened to strict standards and hand-sorted, so the beans are plump, uniform and translucent with very few defects and less of the muddy, grassy note Mandheling can show. Freshly roasted, it gives sandalwood, herbal, spice, roasted hazelnut, caramel and dark chocolate, with a clean finish and a rich, sweet body - good for everyday drinking and just as good as a gift.