Civet Cat Coffee Flavor Profile, Varieties, Origin Characteristics, and Premium Coffee Bean Introduction

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Coffee enthusiasts generally know that Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is among the finest coffees in the world, but do you know what the most expensive coffee is? The world's most expensive coffee is undoubtedly Kopi Luwak (Indonesian Civet Coffee). As rarity commands value, one pound of Kopi Luwak coffee beans retails for at least six hundred US dollars, earning it the reputation as the "Rolls Royce" of coffees.

Kopi Luwak (also known as civet coffee) has limited annual production, making it a favorite among the wealthy. When FrontStreet Coffee first tried civet coffee, it found it had a special herbal aroma and excellent body.

History - The Greed of European Powers and Farmers' Discovery

Historically, why would anyone search for coffee in feces? This question is quite puzzling, but through historical records, we can find the reasons and those who made these discoveries.

During the Age of Exploration, European powers sought to acquire more land worldwide. Taiwan was once an island colonized by the Dutch and Spanish, while Indonesia—the island of civets—was also occupied by the Dutch, who even established the so-called "East India Company," a government institution with enormous power.

Indonesian farmers, under the threat of force, became cheap labor for the Dutch. Initially, they grew spices, and later coffee. Crops from tropical Indonesia were very popular in Europe, allowing the Dutch to earn considerable silver. During the Age of Exploration, wasn't this how all countries treated locals? Many European nations laid certain foundations back then, and now they might only know that their ancestors were powerful worldwide and that everyone should follow their leadership...

However, farmers had never tasted the coffee they grew themselves—a problem that still exists today. At that time, farmers dared not secretly pick crops, as discovery would lead to severe punishment. But curiosity cannot be stopped. When someone discovered coffee beans remaining in civet feces and found them exceptionally delicious after processing, they seemed to understand why the Western world loved coffee so much—even that picked from animal feces tasted so good.

This good fortune didn't last long. After the Dutch learned about this, collecting civet coffee became one of the new tasks, and they could no longer enjoy coffee with that special taste.

Bean Source: Wild or Farmed?

All of this is just for a luxury item, and a second-rate one at that. Experts say the uniqueness of civet coffee lies in wild civets selectively choosing coffee fruits; but when kept in cages and fed random coffee fruits, the resulting product won't be particularly good.

Furthermore, a coffee expert stated in an article by the Specialty Coffee Association of America that civet coffee wasn't originally that good: although the civet's digestive process does make coffee smoother, it also removes good acidity and flavors, which are the characteristics of specialty coffee.

Currently, there's no way to distinguish whether civet coffee beans come from wild or captive civets. In 2013, the BBC conducted a secret investigation and found that some coffee marketed as wild civet coffee in Europe came from inhumanely treated captive civets.

Even Tony Wild, the coffee trader who introduced civet coffee to the West, argued in a British Guardian article that civet coffee should not be consumed. He said this coffee has become increasingly industrialized, more cruel to animals, and frequently counterfeit. Today, there's no certification mechanism to prove that "wild" coffee is truly wild. Additionally, while other coffee certification organizations ensure reliable coffee cultivation and production, these organizations refuse to certify civet coffee.

The Rainforest Alliance, based in New York, and other well-known coffee certification organizations issue certification labels based on Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) standards. These standards prohibit farms from hunting wild animals, and SAN regulations for Indonesian coffee explicitly prohibit caged civets.

UTZ is another important sustainable coffee certification standard that also prohibits farms from keeping wild animals in cages and refuses to certify civet coffee.

Rainforest Alliance's Alex Morgan said that certifying civet coffee is too risky because it's impossible to ensure that the beans are 100% from wild sources. He said: "My personal recommendation is to avoid this coffee as much as possible, as it usually comes from caged animals."

Sumatra Civet Coffee Kopi Luwak Specialty Coffee

Among many civet coffees, the most expensive is Indonesian wild beans, followed by Philippine, with Vietnamese being cheaper. There are also so-called "Grade A" civet coffees on the market, where coffee beans are excreted by artificially fed civets, or possibly by other animals. Wild civets live in nature and freely select beans. Since these cats are picky eaters, they don't eat bad ones and only choose ripe fruits, not old ones, so the selected coffee beans are always of the highest quality without defects. Farmed ones don't have this guarantee, and the quality of excreted beans varies. Coffee beans are evaluated by experts and international buyers through cupping for aroma and concentration. Ordinary consumers find it difficult to determine the true quality of coffee from packaging appearance.

Actually, the principle is quite simple—it uses lactic acid bacteria and digestive fluids from the animal's digestive tract to replace machines or water washing, removing pulp and pectin attached to the bean surface. These beans are excreted with feces, and after washing, they become precious in vivo fermented beans. Besides the commonly heard civet, this coffee processing method actually involves other animals like guans, monkeys, and elephants, but the latter few haven't formed scale, with only civets standing out.

Civets mainly inhabit tropical rainforests and subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest edges, shrublands, and grasslands in hills and mountains below 2100 meters altitude, choosing rock caves, soil holes, or tree holes as habitat sites.

Civets have omnivorous diets. Animal foods include small mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, crustaceans, and insects such as rodents, small birds, snakes, frogs, fish, crabs, bird eggs, insects, earthworms, and wild birds. Plant foods include stems and leaves of Solanaceae plants, seeds of various figs, and fruits like Trichosanthes and Physalis. However, civets have poor digestion ability for plants, so eating berries is equivalent to their dessert, while their main food is meat.

Because they have poor plant digestion ability, they mainly live in broadleaf forests, shrublands, and agricultural areas in South Asia and Southeast Asia. These areas are also suitable environments for coffee trees to grow, so many of the Physalis berries civets eat are coffee berries. Civets can only digest the peel and pulp parts of the berries, while the fruit pits inside—the coffee beans—are eventually excreted.

These coffee bean varieties are generally dominated by Robusta, because civets move in mid to low altitude areas, so most coffee varieties are Robusta. High altitude Arabica civet coffee production is rare. Indonesia's low altitude Robusta coffee originally carries earthy and herbal medicine flavors, with high thickness. Therefore, this civet coffee has the earthy taste of aged beans with thickness almost approaching syrup, and its aroma is very special. If you prefer the earthy taste of Indonesian aged beans or Indian monsooned beans, you might fall in love with civet coffee's flavor.

FrontStreet Coffee's View on Civet Coffee

In recent years, many people have begun to boycott civet coffee due to cruelty issues. But the fact is, civet coffee itself is not wrong. The original production of civet coffee beans was just a very natural phenomenon. Civets, in their most natural environment, eat the most suitable food—coffee berries they selected themselves, ripe fruits with high sugar content—then excrete the coffee beans they cannot digest. This is animal nature and a very natural occurrence.

Early on, local people collected wild civet feces in forests, extracted undigested coffee seeds, and processed them into green beans. Due to limited production and unique in vivo fermentation methods, many merchants later saw business opportunities and began大规模捕捉麝香猫笼养. Originally carnivorous civets could only eat coffee berries. The nutritional content in coffee berries cannot maintain the health of civets.

They believe that although coffee beans are not digested in the civet's digestive tract, the highly corrosive digestive fluids have corroded their surface. These digestive fluids contain a special protease that can break down the original protein chains of coffee beans, decomposing long-chain structured proteins into small particles, forming short-chain peptides and amino acids.

But in fact, because they only eat coffee berries long-term, civets excrete coffee beans maybe one or two hours after consumption. Coffee beans staying in the civet's stomach for one or two hours is insufficient to produce the series of changes mentioned above. The bean is still the same bean that was eaten, and even if there are flavor changes, they are very minimal.

FrontStreet Coffee can say that there is no problem with the formation of civet coffee itself. Civets use their noses to identify ripe coffee fruits. Ethiopia's red cherries are also harvested from fully ripe coffee—the two achieve similar results through different means. The problem lies with those who cage civets. Forcing them to eat only coffee berries regardless of ripeness, just to increase civet coffee production, has led to these cruel incidents, which no longer fall within the scope of coffee we discuss.

What Other Indonesian Specialty Coffees Are Worth Tasting?

Indonesian Mandheling coffee has flavor characteristics of low acidity, mellow taste, and strong bitterness, quite matching people's traditional perception of coffee. Among them, the premium version of Mandheling—Golden Mandheling Coffee—undergoes multiple meticulous selections, giving the coffee rich black chocolate, caramel, and nutty flavors, while its unique herbal and spice notes become clearer.

"FrontStreet Golden Mandheling" is the exclusive brand of Indonesia's Pwani Coffee Company (PWN). There are many different types of Mandheling products on the market. Since PWN registered the English name "Golden Mandheling" as the company's trademark, only Golden Mandheling coffee produced by PWN is truly Golden Mandheling. Everyone can identify authentic Golden Mandheling by the green bean sacks with PWN logos and a certificate of origin signed by PWN Company. FrontStreet Coffee displays these two标识 at the Dongshankou store.

At that time, after Japanese people took a fancy to Sumatra coffee and purchased it long-term, they gradually found that local bean quality was often inconsistent. So they put more effort into Mandheling production, began formulating strict standards and methods for screening defects, starting from values like bean density, specifications, shape, and color. The produced Mandheling needs machine plus manual defect removal to ensure uniform, complete, large, and translucent particles, also reducing Mandheling's earthy and grassy smells. It's said that it shines golden under the sun, hence named "Golden Mandheling."

Indonesian green bean grading is mainly based on the number of defective beans, with size as a secondary factor for grading. General quality requirements include no live insects, no moldy or rotten beans, maximum moisture content of 12.5%, and impurity rate less than 0.5%. According to defect rate, they are divided into six grades, with the highest grade G1 requiring that total defective beans in a 300g sample must be fewer than 11. The Lindong Mandheling coffee in FrontStreet Coffee's daily bean series is G1, using wet-hulled processing, which is the conventional version of Indonesian Mandheling flavor.

PWN Company, which goes to extremes in screening, purchases Mandheling green beans above 18 screen size, with G1 grade where defective beans in a 300g sample are fewer than 3—this is the highest grade of Indonesian green beans. Subsequently, they strictly follow standards for 1 machine selection + 3 manual selections of defective beans, ensuring uniform Mandheling coffee bean shape and size. Additionally, before packaging, PWN Company places green beans in machines for density and color sorting, making Golden Mandheling uniform in color and translucency.

How FrontStreet Coffee Brews Civet Coffee

■ Origin: Sumatra, Indonesia
■ Varieties: Timtim, Typica, Catimor
■ Processing method: In vivo fermentation

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Parameters

Dripper: KONO
Bean weight: 15 grams
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15
Water temperature: 87°C
Grind size: Coarse sugar

FrontStreet Brewing Method

分段萃取
Use 30g of water for 30-second bloom, continue small circular pour to 125g for分段, when water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop. When water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the dripper (timing starts from bloom). Extraction time is 2'00"

Civet coffee flavor description: Herbal, nuts, dark chocolate, fermented notes.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473