I finally managed to try something relatively exotic that I'd heard of for a long time... Kopi Luwak, or civet cat coffee. Kopi is the Indonesian imported word for "coffee", and luwak for civet. It's basically coffee produced from coffee beans that have been eaten by civet cats, digested and passed out as droppings. Of course, the coffee beans are cleaned and processed appropriately before they reach you.
Sounds gross? Well, many other things are gross aren't they? Like most of the time, when you eat shrimp, you're eating them with their faeces inside too. Also, most eggs are laid covered in chicken poop. They're just washed before they reach you. And the water you drink was once dinosaur urine... So what's the big deal?
Aside from that though, this product has been flamed by critics for other reasons, as the Wikipedia page on kopi luwak summarises. Firstly, it says that there are animal rights issues. However, I feel that most foods have animal rights issues. And those that don't probably have human rights issues. So well, the only way to avoid it is to be strictly vegetarian and eat only common veggies. Or else, live a highly inconvenient life inquiring about the origins of all food you encounter.
The second point of criticism is that for all the hype, there's nothing spectacular about the taste of the actual brewed coffee.
Thirdly, people say it's hard to find the genuine article.
Well, I beg to differ on the second point. In fact, the third point already hints that those who find nothing special about it may not have gotten the genuine thing. I'll elaborate more on how awesome I found it to be later in my post...
I find it funny how they call it "organic". If you remember a previous post of mine on associations with the word "organic", it could be taken to mean "bustling with ecological activity"... to put it nicely.
Also, I had normally associated organic stuff from developing countries as possibly being grown with dung as fertiliser... mistaken as that may be, I'm sure that some agriculture in my region at least is done that way, and I have credible sources. Well, in this case, dung was definitely and literally used. ROTFL
We brewed it the typical local way... putting the coffee powder into a "sock" and running boiling water through it, or just steeping it in hot water like you would tea.
And the result was most impressive! This is notable, because I normally don't like drinking coffee firstly because I hate coffee breath. Secondly, I'm not fond of the acidity in coffee... I guess that may be related to coffee breath, as I'll explain later. But I love the aroma of coffee... I love the smell of cafes, just not the actual drink. I also don't have a problem with the bitterness of coffee... I love bitter green teas, for instance.
This kopi luwak took away all that I hated about coffee... firstly, it had almost no acidity, but retained its aroma and normal bitter flavour! This allowed me to savour the rich and smooth aroma of the coffee.
Secondly, it didn't produce any coffee breath! At least, not after one mugful of it. If you drank an entire pot, it may be a different story. But still, to illustrate the difference, just a couple of sips of Starbucks coffee and I already get coffee breath. So kopi luwak is the perfect coffee to drink if you're meeting clients after that or cannot afford to have coffee breath.
The difference between this and normal coffees reminds me of the difference between cheap and good quality wines. Good quality wines aren't sour, and are very smooth, and you can appreciate the flavour (is that called the body?) of the fermented fruit without the extra sourness. When I first drank this, I thought likewise.
In fact, it comes very close to cold-brew coffee (also known as cold drip coffee). I didn't have cold-brew coffee on hand to compare, but in my (potentially faulty) memory, there wasn't much of a difference. And as you know, cold-brew coffee is trending these couple of years, with many good reviews on it, like this.
In fact, they describe cold-brew coffee as also not having acidity. Maybe the difference would be that kopi luwak retains the bitterness, while cold-brew coffee may be more fruity, as the interviewee in the review described. The benefit of kopi luwak over cold-brew coffee is that you can brew it at home with hot water the normal simple way, like tea, without having to purchase some boombastic and probably expensive cold-brewing equipment.
I then tried it with fresh milk... and it was also awesome. The creaminess of the milk complemented the smoothness and aroma of the coffee perfectly! Usually, I hate Western coffee with fresh milk... I think it's the acidity + milk combination that makes me sick. I'm usually ok with the local Southeast Asian coffee with condensed milk though, I think because the nature of the condensed milk complements the acidity of the coffee in an acceptable way. But well, this particular Southeast Asian coffee went well with normal fresh milk.
So yeah, I'm sure I got the genuine article because there was such a distinction in the taste. And it must be pretty good to convert a non-coffee drinker.
(BUT, you could also argue that since I'm usually a non-coffee drinker, maybe my tastes differ from the majority of coffee drinkers, so maybe I'm not a good standard of reference.)
The only downside is its high price, between US$100 and $600 per pound in 2010, according to Wikipedia. I think this small box of five packets cost SGD18-19. Each packet makes about 1 cup. So that's about S$3.60 for a homemade cup, in contrast to say, Nespresso, which is about S$0.80-1.20 per cup.
1) Taste is a preference. Just because the critics in the article didn't like the lack of acidity, it doesn't mean it's bad. Maybe you just have bourgeouis taste buds that need "loud" and obvious tastes, and you can't appreciate subtler tastes. =P
2) It's valuable precisely because it offers consumers a relatively different option. And it's precisely because it's rare for a coffee to have such low acidity, that kopi luwak is in such great demand.
3) You can't argue with the market... if kopi luwak continues to sell at high prices, it means the demand is high enough for that. So despite what you blabber about in the Wikipedia page, your opinion remains the minority as the market quietly but surely continues to express its appreciation for this product.
4) Why the discrepancy between reviews of kopi luwak and cold-brewed coffee? If you hated kopi luwak because you complain about its low acidity, then you should probably hate cold-brew coffee too because of its close-to-no acidity. If there's a difference in opinion on these two products by the same people, I'd attribute it to someone pulling the strings behind the scenes, potentially. Like giant corporations and famous brands selling main stream coffee beans probably paid some people to review cold-brew highly, or to review kopi luwak poorly, since the former utilises their beans and the latter is a competitor. And these giants probably have a much larger marketing budget for such stunts than the small-time kopi luwak farmers.
5) Authentic "wild" kopi luwak is supposed to be good also because civet cats are able to select higher quality coffee beans as they graze for food, contributing to the higher quality of kopi luwak. Although it's true that most kopi luwak is now farmed from civet cats that are caged, and therefore no longer have that special civet cat-selected quality, I think that element only contributes in a small way to what makes kopi luwak special. It's probably the digestive processing and the resulting low acidity, rather than civet cat selection, that give kopi luwak its marked difference. So I find that this point of criticism is mostly irrelevant to my experience.
Sounds gross? Well, many other things are gross aren't they? Like most of the time, when you eat shrimp, you're eating them with their faeces inside too. Also, most eggs are laid covered in chicken poop. They're just washed before they reach you. And the water you drink was once dinosaur urine... So what's the big deal?
Aside from that though, this product has been flamed by critics for other reasons, as the Wikipedia page on kopi luwak summarises. Firstly, it says that there are animal rights issues. However, I feel that most foods have animal rights issues. And those that don't probably have human rights issues. So well, the only way to avoid it is to be strictly vegetarian and eat only common veggies. Or else, live a highly inconvenient life inquiring about the origins of all food you encounter.
The second point of criticism is that for all the hype, there's nothing spectacular about the taste of the actual brewed coffee.
Thirdly, people say it's hard to find the genuine article.
Well, I beg to differ on the second point. In fact, the third point already hints that those who find nothing special about it may not have gotten the genuine thing. I'll elaborate more on how awesome I found it to be later in my post...
~~~
A relative purchased a box of these from Bali, Indonesia.I find it funny how they call it "organic". If you remember a previous post of mine on associations with the word "organic", it could be taken to mean "bustling with ecological activity"... to put it nicely.
Also, I had normally associated organic stuff from developing countries as possibly being grown with dung as fertiliser... mistaken as that may be, I'm sure that some agriculture in my region at least is done that way, and I have credible sources. Well, in this case, dung was definitely and literally used. ROTFL
Secondly, it didn't produce any coffee breath! At least, not after one mugful of it. If you drank an entire pot, it may be a different story. But still, to illustrate the difference, just a couple of sips of Starbucks coffee and I already get coffee breath. So kopi luwak is the perfect coffee to drink if you're meeting clients after that or cannot afford to have coffee breath.
The difference between this and normal coffees reminds me of the difference between cheap and good quality wines. Good quality wines aren't sour, and are very smooth, and you can appreciate the flavour (is that called the body?) of the fermented fruit without the extra sourness. When I first drank this, I thought likewise.
In fact, it comes very close to cold-brew coffee (also known as cold drip coffee). I didn't have cold-brew coffee on hand to compare, but in my (potentially faulty) memory, there wasn't much of a difference. And as you know, cold-brew coffee is trending these couple of years, with many good reviews on it, like this.
I then tried it with fresh milk... and it was also awesome. The creaminess of the milk complemented the smoothness and aroma of the coffee perfectly! Usually, I hate Western coffee with fresh milk... I think it's the acidity + milk combination that makes me sick. I'm usually ok with the local Southeast Asian coffee with condensed milk though, I think because the nature of the condensed milk complements the acidity of the coffee in an acceptable way. But well, this particular Southeast Asian coffee went well with normal fresh milk.
(BUT, you could also argue that since I'm usually a non-coffee drinker, maybe my tastes differ from the majority of coffee drinkers, so maybe I'm not a good standard of reference.)
The only downside is its high price, between US$100 and $600 per pound in 2010, according to Wikipedia. I think this small box of five packets cost SGD18-19. Each packet makes about 1 cup. So that's about S$3.60 for a homemade cup, in contrast to say, Nespresso, which is about S$0.80-1.20 per cup.
~~~
So back to my defence of kopi luwak against the criticisms in the Wikipedia article...1) Taste is a preference. Just because the critics in the article didn't like the lack of acidity, it doesn't mean it's bad. Maybe you just have bourgeouis taste buds that need "loud" and obvious tastes, and you can't appreciate subtler tastes. =P
2) It's valuable precisely because it offers consumers a relatively different option. And it's precisely because it's rare for a coffee to have such low acidity, that kopi luwak is in such great demand.
3) You can't argue with the market... if kopi luwak continues to sell at high prices, it means the demand is high enough for that. So despite what you blabber about in the Wikipedia page, your opinion remains the minority as the market quietly but surely continues to express its appreciation for this product.
4) Why the discrepancy between reviews of kopi luwak and cold-brewed coffee? If you hated kopi luwak because you complain about its low acidity, then you should probably hate cold-brew coffee too because of its close-to-no acidity. If there's a difference in opinion on these two products by the same people, I'd attribute it to someone pulling the strings behind the scenes, potentially. Like giant corporations and famous brands selling main stream coffee beans probably paid some people to review cold-brew highly, or to review kopi luwak poorly, since the former utilises their beans and the latter is a competitor. And these giants probably have a much larger marketing budget for such stunts than the small-time kopi luwak farmers.
5) Authentic "wild" kopi luwak is supposed to be good also because civet cats are able to select higher quality coffee beans as they graze for food, contributing to the higher quality of kopi luwak. Although it's true that most kopi luwak is now farmed from civet cats that are caged, and therefore no longer have that special civet cat-selected quality, I think that element only contributes in a small way to what makes kopi luwak special. It's probably the digestive processing and the resulting low acidity, rather than civet cat selection, that give kopi luwak its marked difference. So I find that this point of criticism is mostly irrelevant to my experience.
Found this drink interesting? Check out more unusual drinks here! Also, if you don't live in Southeast Asia, coffee made from coffee bean droppings might be highly unusual to you. If you found this interesting, you can explore more exceptionally unusual food and drinks here!
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