The Most Expensive Coffee is made from a Cat’s Dung
You’ve heard it before. Here’s the story
In Indonesian, Kopi Luwak means civet coffee and the Asian Palm Civet plays a key role in this process.
Coffee cherries eaten by the Palm Civet are only partially digested and these feces are used for the Kopi Luwak. Now — why?
You see, coffee beans are only seeds of a fruit — coffee cherry fruit. Upon ripening, harvesting the seeds itself is an extensive process. It isn’t as simple as removing the fruit from the seed.
It needs to undergo fermentation to get these final beans and there are multiple methods to do so.
For this coffee, instead of indulging in the process, the civet selects the most ripe cherries and the fermentation is left to the civet’s intestines.
Voila! The fermented cherries are then collected from the fecal matter for brewing Kopi Lewak.
