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Kopi Luwak

Sunday, December 16, 2007 ★ 16:58 ★ Category Misc

Together with a friend of mine, I wanted to try Kopi Luwak (Civet Coffee), the most exclusive coffee in the world. Luwaks, also known as Asian Palm Civets, are cat-sized mammals living in south-east Asia. These furry animals eat the coffee berries, but the coffee beans themselves pass through their digestive system untouched. The beans are then retrieved from the Luwak’s feces, washed, roasted, and sold for big money.

Yuck, you’d say. It is common wisdom that anything that has been in contact with feces should not be considered healthy. Well, not exactly true in this case. Investigation by food scientists reveiled that roasted Kopi Luwak beans had lower bacterial counts than control beans, most likely due to the thorough washing process involved with the preparation of the coffee.

Luwak

Drawing of a Luwak (from Wikipedia), also known as koffierat (coffee rat) in Dutch, for obvious reasons.

Yesterday I picked up my previously made reservation of 100 grams Kopi Luwak at a local coffee specialities store. For a small cup of coffee, roughly 6 grams of coffee are needed. I prefer doubles though, so I can make roughly 8 decent cups of coffee… plenty for the people who will be drinking this really exquise drink with me.

Though Kopi Luwak is notoriously known for being extremely expensive, it’s not that bad. My 100 grams costed only EUR 18, which is not that expensive at all compared to the price you pay for, say, 8 double espressos in a coffee bar.

Update: No, I haven’t tried it yet. I promised to wait until that friend I mentioned above comes over to try it together with me. For now I’ve put the ground beans inside a tin can and stored that whole lot in my freezer. Hopefully it stays okay for a few days.