LUWAK COFFEE BEANS

The Legend has it Kopi Luwak (Indonesian: coffee from [the] Luwak—Civet cat) was discovered in Indonesia under Dutch colonial rule. Kopi Luwak comes from the Indonesian Island of Java and Sumatra, an area well known for its excellent coffee.

They soon discovered that the civet cat, an animal native to the area, would eat coffee cherries and pass the seeds—the coffee beans—without digesting them. Upon brewing coffee made from these beans, they discovered it tasted much better than the conventional coffee of the time.

The beans would also have all the extra fruity bits stripped off by enzymes during digestion, resulting in a thoroughly clean result; leaving fruit pulp or mucilage on the beans can lead to fermentation or mould during drying, something that would have been quite common for regularly processed coffee in the mid-19th century.

The resulting coffee is said to be rich, heavy flavor with hints of caramel or chocolate. Some describe it as earthy, musty, exotic and very smooth.