What Is Kopi Luwak and Why Does It Draw Criticism?

Kopi Luwak, also called civet coffee, is among the most expensive and scarce coffees sold. The beans must pass through a civet's digestive tract for in-vivo fermentation, which gives the cup an herbal note and a syrupy, full body. The controversy is not the coffee's formation but the practice of caging civets and forcing them to eat coffee cherries to raise output.

Civets live in hilly and mountainous areas below about 2,100 meters, in tropical rainforest and subtropical forest edges, shrubs and grassy land, resting in rock caves, earthen burrows or tree holes. Annual output of Kopi Luwak is very limited, and the underlying bean variety is often ordinary, so price reflects scarcity and processing more than raw bean quality.

Kopi Luwak is globally recognized as one of the most expensive and scarce coffees, unique in that the coffee beans must undergo in-vivo fermentation through the civet's digestive tract, giving the flavor an herbal aroma and a syrupy, full-bodied taste. However, controversy surrounding it has never ceased—the issue is not how the coffee itself is formed, but the cruel practice by some who, in order to increase production, imprison civets in cages and force them to eat only coffee cherries. In this article, Front Street Coffee will systematically review the production principles, flavor characteristics, historical stories of Kopi Luwak, as well as Front Street's recommended medium-dark roast pour-over recipe, helping coffee lovers rationally understand this controversial coffee.

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When it comes to Kopi Luwak, it is a name long accompanied by controversy. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) also offers Kopi Luwak, but Front Street has always believed that there is nothing wrong with the formation mechanism of Kopi Luwak itself; what is truly criticized are those who lock civets in cages and force them to swallow coffee cherries regardless of whether they are ripe, solely to increase the production of Kopi Luwak, which has given rise to those cruel practices—this has gone beyond the scope of our discussion about coffee. Now Front Street will talk about Kopi Luwak.

Kopi Luwak, also known as civet coffee, with the English name Kopi Luwak, I believe everyone is already very familiar with this name. It is widely known as the most expensive coffee in the world and one of the rarest coffees, with a very limited annual output. Because the coffee beans undergo in-vivo fermentation, the flavor carries a special herbal note and also performs prominently in body, making Kopi Luwak a sought-after item among the wealthy, with an extremely high price. Although the price is astonishing, generally speaking, the variety and quality of the beans used are actually quite ordinary.

Civets mainly live in hilly and mountainous areas below 2,100 meters in altitude, inhabiting tropical rainforests and subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest edges, shrubs, and grassy areas, and prefer rock caves, earthen burrows, or tree holes as resting places. Most of these coffee beans are Robusta, because civets' activity areas are concentrated at low to medium altitudes, so the coffee varieties are naturally mostly Robusta. As for Kopi Luwak produced from high-altitude Arabica, the yield is extremely rare. What does Kopi Luwak taste like? Civets are omnivores; animal-based foods include small mammals and birds, while plant-based foods include the stems and leaves of Solanaceae plants, various fig seeds, as well as borage fruit and sour berries. However, civets have poor ability to digest plants, so eating berries is more like dessert for them, with meat being the real staple. Because of their limited ability to digest plants and their main distribution in the broad-leaved forests, shrublands, and agricultural areas of South and Southeast Asia—places that happen to be suitable for coffee trees to grow—a large portion of the sour berries civets eat are coffee cherries. Civets can only digest the skin and pulp of the berries; the inner pit, which is the coffee bean, is eventually excreted. Because civets inhabit the low-altitude zones of Indonesia and the coffee variety is the lower-quality Robusta, Kopi Luwak carries the earthy and herbal flavors commonly found in Robusta beans. Combined with the special processing method, its coffee has a very high viscosity, entering the mouth like syrup, full-bodied and solid. The special processing method of Kopi Luwak—in-vivo fermentation

In the early days, locals would pick up the feces of wild civets in the forest, extract the undigested coffee seeds, and process them into green beans. Because of the scarce yield and the unique in-vivo fermentation method, later many merchants smelled a business opportunity and began to capture civets in large numbers for cage farming; civets that should have eaten meat were forced to eat only coffee cherries. The nutrients in coffee cherries simply cannot keep civets healthy.

Some people believe that although coffee beans are not digested in the civet's digestive tract, the highly corrosive digestive juices have eroded their surface. These digestive juices contain a special protease that can break the original protein chains of coffee beans, decomposing long-chain proteins into small particles, forming short-chain peptides and amino acids. But the fact is, due to long-term consumption of only coffee cherries, the time for civets to excrete coffee beans may be only one to two hours after eating; the beans stay in the stomach for such a short time that it is simply insufficient to produce the above series of changes. The bean is still the same bean as when it was eaten; even if the flavor changes, it is only an extremely tiny change. Front Street's neutral view on Kopi Luwak

Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) believes that there is no problem with the formation of Kopi Luwak itself. Civets rely on their noses to identify ripe coffee cherries, and Ethiopia's red cherries are likewise harvested when fully ripe—the two are similar in principle. What is problematic are those who lock up civets. They force civets to eat only coffee cherries regardless of ripeness, solely to increase the production of Kopi Luwak, thereby causing these cruel things—this no longer belongs to the category of coffee we discuss.

Imagine, if it were true that passing through the digestive tract makes coffee taste better, then if you fed it a large pile of coffee beans regardless of raw or ripe, it would also taste better—which is why so many artificially farmed Vietnamese Kopi Luwak, Yunnan Kopi Luwak, and Indonesian Kopi Luwak have appeared. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) believes that only coffee beans produced from ripe coffee cherries will taste good. Therefore, even if Kopi Luwak continues to be produced, it can only be done by establishing a sufficiently large activity area, letting them choose the coffee cherries they find suitable to eat, while also providing them with other sources of nutrition. Can the in-vivo processing method of Kopi Luwak be replaced by technology?

The excessive pursuit and extremely high prices of this kind of coffee may lead to the consequences of wild animals being forcibly imprisoned and forced to produce coffee beans. Persecuting wild animals for the sake of appetite is truly unnecessary.

According to online reports, with the development of microbial technology, people are also trying to ferment green coffee beans in a more environmentally friendly way. For example, some are committed to developing modern technology and microbial techniques to simulate the civet's digestive system to process coffee cherries. If the research succeeds, this simulated Kopi Luwak will neither pose a threat to wild animals nor fail to produce high-quality coffee. How does Front Street brew Kopi Luwak?

In order to better showcase the herbal flavor and full-bodied taste of Kopi Luwak, Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) uses medium-dark roast when roasting Kopi Luwak beans. Medium-dark roasted beans generally have a higher dehydration rate, so they are relatively lighter in weight. During brewing, the grounds do not completely sink to the bottom; as soon as water is poured, it is immediately absorbed. Due to vigorous degassing, bubbles surround the grounds, creating channels, and the fresher the beans, the longer these channels last, causing the water level to drop rapidly. I generally use a coarse stream of water, slowly circling. Front Street uses a KONO dripper for brewing, because it can bring out a rounder and fuller body, and the flavor expression is more direct.

Brewing parameters: water temperature 86-87°C; grind size: granulated sugar; coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15 (15g coffee, 225ml water)

Front Street uses staged extraction: use 30g of water for blooming for 30 seconds, pour in a small stream in circles until 125g for the stage break, and when the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring until 225g and stop. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the dripper. (Timing starts at the beginning of blooming) Extraction time is 2'00"

Kopi Luwak Flavor description: herbal, nutty, dark chocolate, fermented notes.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.