Kopi luwak
Kopi Luwak (ˈkopi ˈluwak) or Civet shit is coffee made from coffee berries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The civets eat the berries, but the beans inside pass through their system undigested. This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago, in the Philippines (where the product is called Kape Alamid) and in East Timor (locally called kafé-laku). Vietnam has a similar type of coffee, called weasel coffee, which is made from coffee berries which have been defecated by local weasels. In actuality the "weasel" is just the local version of the Asian Palm Civet.
Origin and Production
Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee, and luwak is a local name of the Asian Palm Civet. The raw, red coffee berries are part of its normal diet, along with insects, small mammals, small reptiles, eggs and nestlings of birds, and other fruit. The inner bean of the berry is not digested, but it has been proposed that enzymes in the stomach of the civet add to the coffee's flavor by breaking down the proteins that give coffee its bitter taste. The beans are eliminated still covered in some inner layers of the berry. The beans are washed, and given only a light roast so as to not destroy the complex flavors that develop through the process. Some sources claim that the beans may be regurgitated instead of defecated.
In early days, the beans would be collected in the wild from a 'latrine', or a specific place where the civet would defecate as a means to mark its territory, and these latrines would be a predictable place for local gatherers to find the beans. More commonly today, captured civets are fed raw berries, the feces produced are then processed and the coffee beans offered for sale.[citation needed] A newly-developed synthetic process intended to simulate the civet's digestive system may decrease the demand for farmed beans. The creator of this process is Trung Nguyen, one of the dominant coffee producers of Vietnam. Synthetic civet coffee is significantly less expensive, and suitable for those who do not wish to ingest true civet coffee.
Economics
Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and the United States. It is increasingly becoming available elsewhere, though supplies are limited: only 1,000 pounds (450 kg) at most make it into the world market each year (Pg 23, The Gospel According to Starbucks; Sweet). One small cafe, the Heritage Tea Rooms, in the hills outside Townsville in Queensland, Australia has Kopi Luwak coffee on the menu at A$50.00 (=US$46.00) per cup, and approximately 4 people a week are up for it, which has gained nationwide Australian press.[1]. In April 2008, the brasserie of Peter Jones department store in London's Sloane Square starting selling a blend of Kopi Luwak and Blue Mountain called Caffe Raro for £50 a cup.[1]
A 2004 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) scare led to thousands of these civets in China being exterminated, [2][3] but the demand for the coffee was not affected.
Research
A hypothesis to justify this coffee's reputation proposes that the beans are of superior quality before they are even ingested. At any given point during a harvest, some coffee berries are not quite- or over-ripe, while others are just right. The palm civet evolved as an omnivore that naturally eats fruit and passes undigested material as a natural link to disperse seeds in a forest ecosystem. Where coffee plants have been introduced into their habitat, civets only forage on the most ripe berries, digest the fleshy outer layer, and later excrete the seeds eventually used for human consumption. Thus, when the fruit is at its peak, the seeds (or beans) within are equally so, with the expectation that this will come through in the taste of a freshly-brewed cup. As this may be true for the beans derived from wild-collected civet feces, farm raised civets are likely fed beans of varying quality and ripeness, so one would expect the taste of farm-raised beans to be less.
In 2008, a blind taste test was conducted by Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology. Using identical preparation equipment and techniques, researchers produced 4 separate samples of coffee. The first used traditional digested beans and the second used undigested beans from the same species of plant normally used for Kopi Luwak. As a control, they also produced samples from two conventional brands, one from Colombia and the other from Kenya. Over 1000 subjects participated in the study, and were asked choose which sample they preferred, and if they could identify each of the sample’s origin. The results of the study indicated that the there was no statistically significant preference for Kopi Luwak over the other three types of coffee, even the cheap brands. In addition, subjects were unable to identify which sample was which with any measurable degree of accuracy. Researchers concluded that the digestion by the Civet had no appreciable difference on the coffee after it is prepared, and it may be little more than a gimmick to sell the product at such an exorbitant price. The researchers further hypothesized that the favorable reputation of Kopi Luwak may be due a previously observed form of “placebo effect,” wherein a consumer enjoys an identical food product more if it is more expensive. [4]
See Also
Kopi Muncak (also Kopi Muntjak) is a similar type of coffee produced from the feces of several species of barking deer, or Muntjac, that are found throughout Southeast Asia. Unlike civet or "weasel" coffee, this type is usually not produced from captive deer and most commonly collected in the wild, especially in Malaysia and in the Indonesian Archipelago.
References
- ^ The Guardian - The £50 espresso
- ^ BBC - 'Civet coffee' sells - despite SARS
- ^ BBC - China confirms two new SARS cases
- ^ Price Influences Perception
External links
- University of Guelph article on the effects of the digestive system on coffee beans
- Report on Guelph research
- USA Today article on civet coffee
- http://www.trung-nguyen-online.com/legendee.html Article on synthetic civet coffee
- BBC Civet coffee selling well despite SARS
- cbc.ca article on "cat poop coffee"
- BBC report In the Philippines
- Foreign Correspondent - 11/09/2007: Sumatra - Extreme Coffee, ABC Australia television broadcast on Foreign Correspondent
