[BITList] Fwd: Kopi Luwak, the world's most expensive coffee

[John Feltham]

We have a small bush tea house, just outside Townsville, that sells  
this coffee. A$55.00 a cup!

ooroo


Subject: Kopi Luwak, the world's most expensive coffee

Sunday, February 14, 2010


Costliest, weirdest

Amar Chandel introduces us to Kopi Luwak, the world’s most expensive  
coffee

IF you are a coffee lover, you might be sourcing your brew from  
Brazil, Hawaii, Ethiopia or Jamaica. But if you are a true connoisseur  
— and have deep enough pockets — then you may patronise Kopi Luwak  
from Indonesia to have the privilege of saying that you drink the  
world’s best and costliest coffee.


The common Asian palm civet, also known as Toddy cat, plays a central  
role in the production of the coffee


The coffee retails for nearly Rs 70,000 a kg and a single cup can cost  
about Rs 2,800

It retails for about $1500 a kg (nearly Rs 70,000) and a single cup  
can set you back by about $60 (Rs 2,800). Mind you, we are not talking  
about prices in five-star hotels, which may charge much more, but in  
ordinary coffeehouses. A store in London’s Sloane Square sells a blend  
of Kopi Luwak peanut and Blue Mountain called Caffe Raro for £50 (Rs  
4,500) a cup. True gourmets swear by its exceptional aroma, lack of  
bitterness and "high notes".

This brand of coffee is so rare that every year barely 450 kg of it  
comes into the world market and whatever does come in is quickly  
lapped up by the US and Japan. The process by which it is made is so  
time-consuming and unusual that the high cost is more than justified,  
say the manufacturers. However, before you take it in your mind to  
savour at least one cup of this brew, cost be damned, please  
familiarise yourself with the manufacturing procedure.

This coffee is made from red coffee beans, which grow mostly on the  
islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali and Sulawesi in the Indonesian  
archipelago, in the Philippines and East Timor. These are fed to a cat- 
like animal called common Asian palm civet (paradoxurus  
hermaphroditus), also known as Toddy Cat. They have the tendency to  
pick up only the richest, ripest and sweetest fruit.

Once the beans go into the stomach of the dark brown, tree-dwelling  
creature, the civet’s endogenous digestive secretions start working on  
them and digest the soft fleshy outer layer. This internal digestion  
removes the bitterness by breaking down the proteins that give coffee  
this undesirable taste. Instead, it adds a special, unusual flavour to  
the beans, the hard inner seeds of which are expelled by the civets as  
excreta.

This waste material is rigorously washed and the berries separated  
from the rest of the feces. These are cleaned, dried in the sun and  
then lightly roasted at high temperature to let out the aroma. It is  
said to taste like musty caramel and chocolate with a complex symphony  
of flavours.

Generally, a cup of coffee is made by adding 8 grams of original  
roasted Kopi Luwak powder into 150cc of hot water. Boiling the water  
is avoided since it could degrade the aroma and taste.

Manufacturers insist that there is no danger of any contamination at  
all because the civet is not a carrier of E. coli or any other  
bacteria which can be potentially dangerous to humans. Since there is  
no record of any illness caused by civet coffee, it is believed to be  
perfectly safe and sanitary.

A similar coffee is Kopi Muncak (or Muntjak) which is produced from  
the feces of several species of barking deer, or Muntjak, found  
throughout South-East Asia. While civet coffee is commonly produced  
from captive animals, this one is made from the droppings of wild  
animals, mostly in Malaysia and the Indonesian archipelago.

Well, you may consider it a case of a disappointed fox calling the  
grapes sour but I have no stomach for something that has been cat or  
deer poop. That I do not have that kind of money to burn on coffee is  
another matter. But if you have the courage and the filthy money for  
the bizarre brew, best of luck.


http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100214/spectrum/main3.htm

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