Kopi Luwak - World's most Expensive Coffee

Hello, everyone. This blog is specially dedicated to all coffee lovers. After a long day, a cup of coffee is all we need to feel better. I heard about this coffee while seeing the movie THE BUCKET LIST. Being a coffee addict myself, I was intrigued when I first heard this and wanted to know why it was so well-known and expensive. So, in this blog, we'll delve into the world of Kopi Luwak.

KOPI LUWAK:

Kopi Luwak, world's most expensive coffee is actually made from poop of civet cat. It is also called as Civet Coffee. It is made from coffee beans that are partially digested and then pooped out by the civet, a catlike creature. A cup of Kopi Luwak, as it’s known, can sell for as much as $80 in the United States. Kopi Luwak is produced mainly on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali, Sulawesi, and in East Timor.

Collectors gather the civet excretion, remove the beans, wash them well, and then air-dry them. Once the thin outer skin on the beans is removed, they are sorted and stored for roasting.

COFFEE FLAVOR:

Fans of kopi Luwak think the unusual fermentation process refines the beans’ flavor. The distinct flavor may derive from the animal’s gut and digestive fluids. Gastric juices and enzymes from the civet’s stomach increase the level of citric acid in the beans, resulting in a coffee with a lemony tanginess and a more-delicate aroma.

Not all coffee drinkers agree. Some critics call Kopi Luwak the worst-tasting coffee in the world and trace the hype surrounding it exclusively to the novelty of its origins and exorbitant price. The expensive trade in that coffee has inspired counterfeiters to pawn off cheap inferior coffee beans as authentic Kopi Luwak. There are also animal-rights concerns about the trapping and treatment of captive civets and the impact of that luxury market on the civet population worldwide.

Kopi Luwak in India:

India, Asia's third-largest producer and exporter of coffee, has started producing the world's most expensive coffee, on a small scale in Coorg district of Karnataka. Here in the country's largest coffee-growing Karnataka state, a start-up firm, Coorg Consolidated Commodities (CCC), has made a humble beginning of making the luxury coffee on a small scale and has also decided to open a cafe to serve the brew locally.

Civet coffee, a drink of elite consumed widely in the Gulf nations and Europe, is sold for Rs 20,000-25,000/kg abroad and for Rs 8,000/kg here in India.

KOPI LUWAK Industry:

At first the civet coffee trade boded well for these creatures. In Indonesia, the Asian palm civet, which raids commercial fruit farms, is often seen as a pest, so the growth in the Kopi Luwak industry encouraged local people to protect civets for their valuable dung. Their digestive enzymes change the structure of proteins in the coffee beans, which removes some of the acidity to make a smoother cup of coffee.

But as civet coffee has gained popularity, and with Indonesia growing as a tourist destination where visitors want to see and interact with wildlife, more wild civets are being confined to cages on coffee plantations. In part, this is for coffee production, but it’s also so money can be made from civet-ogling tourists.

What makes Kopi Luwak so special, experts say, is that wild civets pick and choose the choicest coffee cherries to eat. Keeping civets in cages and feeding them any old cherries leads to an inferior product.

Conclusion: