What is Kopi Luwak (Civet Coffee) ?
Kopi Luwak (Civet coffee) is designation for a specific brand of coffee, which produce an extremely rare drink. Additional variations are found in East Timor (kopi laku) and Vietnam (Ca phe chon cut [Ca Phe Chon], fox-ing coffee / weasel coffee).
The brand name is Kopi Luwak from Indonesia on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi. Harvested in the Philippines, in the mountains of Südmindanao, it is distributed under Coffee Alamid / Philippine Civet Coffee, a blend of Arabica, Excelsa and liberica beans. “Kopi” is the Indonesian word for coffee. “Musang luwak” (local “Musang pandan”) is the Indonesian name for the wild parties Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus, with the subspecies P. philippinensis in hermaphroditus Südmindanao), originating from the genus of Musang.
The civet is largely nocturnal and arboreal. In addition to the fruit of the coffee plant it feeds on fruits, occasionally small mammals and reptiles, eggs and newly hatched chicks and insects. From the coffee bean, but it can digest only the pulp, the beans are excreted. The excreted is collected by the locals. In the expert help that the cats to visit again in the same place her “litter”. The coffee beans are washed and lightly toasted. In the gut of this animal, the coffee cherries are exposed to a Nassfermentation by enzymes that change the taste characteristics: it creates a dark and full, but also a little “musty” flavor, the British actor John Cleese describes the kopi luwak (civet coffee) taste as “earthy, musty, sweet, full-bodied and with jungle and chocolate undertones. “
An examination of the Canadian food chemist Massimo Marcone was tiny “craters” on the surface of the Kopi Luwak beans-that are missing in traditional coffee beans. He suspects it marks that result from the digestive secretions of the civet cats. In addition, the data stored in the bean proteins by digestive enzymes were partly degraded completely, partially split into smaller molecules, which then help determine the roasting of the beans aroma and flavor. This fermentation of raw coffee beans is already known by the wet process ( “washing”). In contrast to wet-dry processed coffees prepared to show less acid and after roasting more aldehydes (2-/3-methylbutanal, acetaldehyde) in the aroma.
The real beans can only recognize a specialist under the microscope or with the flavor profile of a gas chromatographic analysis. The quality of this coffee is not constant, but depends on the type of coffee beans eaten, and by the time she was lying on the forest floor and from rainfall. Similarly, the drying affects the quality significantly. In the countries themselves, he is not so much as a specialty.
The Kopi Luwak (civet coffee) is also the most expensive in the world: its price is around 500 € / kg [1], while retail is generally sold at 5 € a cup. It is produced primarily for the Japanese market and the U.S., but is becoming available a bit ‘everywhere.
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Tags: arabica, civet coffee, coffee bean, excelsa, indonesia, java, kopi luwak, liberica, philippines, sulawesi, sumatra
