Kopi Luwak Coffee:Read This Before You Sip It

I wonder if George Clooney ever tasted Kopi Luwak Coffee; if he has well, I bet he would've said "There is Something Else" in the end of every commercial episode I happened to stumbled upon on the YouTube. I am not saying that kopi luwak coffee has better taste than Nespresso - as matter of fact both coffee perhaps, cannot simply be compared to one another -the fact is, out of its unique taste and origin, plus due to the lots of demand arround the world Kopi Luwak price has gone up higher every single year.

The actual taste?. Well, the last time I had a cup of Kopi Luwak Coffee I said to myself: "This truly is some feses". The coffee roasts pretty good and sort of have caramel taste, however I doubt if the jungle like green and musty smell would attract a newly coffee luwak tester to have another sip, altough I am sure after forcing her/himself for several sips one would taste the real pleasurable in all coffee. And if you are a smoker, the coffee can also be an excellent companion to have a cigg with. The lovely soothing aftertaste of Kopi Luwak and a cig would blend nicely.

Back in colonial era, which occurred during 1602 – 1945 in Indonesia, the Dutchmen forbid local farmers to consume the coffee harvested from ‘their’ plantations, therefore, coffee beans wrapped within civet pooh lying on the plantations soil were collected and further processed. It turned out that the coffee made from “these particular coffee beans” had better taste than the normal one.

Kopi Luwak Coffee is actually undigested coffee beans wraped up by feses as the remains of material that are expelled from civet's body. The beans are processed within civet's digestive system as they blend along with certain enzymes before they are expelled; Doctor Massimo Marcone, a scientist from Ontario, Canada believes that proteolytic enzymes within civets (Paradoxurus) reduces the caffeine level and causes substantial breakdown of protein, the animal enzymes also prevent caffeine jitters and bitter taste, altough right after they are expelled, the beans do have a faint smell like stables you usually smell at a zoo.

Prior to that, coffee farmers sort out the bad coffee from the high quality before the are served to the civets to be eaten. Basically, a farmer would only need the beans as the coffee cherries would be perfectly digested by civets. The beans that are expelled from civets are yellow in colors. Actually, a civet was once defined as pest for coffee plantation, but these days it becomes a favorite pet for coffee farmer after people discovered the smell and taste of coffee beans expelled by the animal. Many Indonesian farmer lend civets from others to digest coffee beans they produce from plantation.

Kusnadi is definitely not an Indonesian coffee farmer living in colonial era. He is one of the coffee farmers from Bengkulu, Southern Sumatera - Indonesia produces 20-50 kgs Kopi Liuwak Coffee each month from his own plantation. Kopi Luwak price is off course different in each part of Indonesia, but if you buy directly from a farmer like Kusnadi it would cost you about US$ 15/kg and thats only for a dry bulk of unroasted Kopi Luwak Coffee beans.

And for a ready to blend is about US$ 30/kg - US$ 40/kg, within International market the price of coffee luwak nowdays (Dec 2010) is about US$ 500/kg to US$ 800/kg, as for Germany the price is US$ 900/kg.

So, you can see how much the margin that a trader or supplier can get from a single kg of coffee luwak, and how little an Indonesian Farmer can get from a kg.

Despite all of that, the coffee has become one of Indonesian natural resources that is well excepted by International Coffee enthusiasts, and I can only hope George Clooney and Kusnadi can have a cup of coffee luwak together someday.