Kopi Luwak - If it tastes like crap .....

As souvenirs of my Indonesian trip, I thought about bringing home a few packets of the legendary kopi luwak, or 'civet coffee', the world's rarest and most expensive coffee.

As all caffeinaholics know, this is the stuff that's made from the predigested beans extracted from the faeces of a civet, a cat-like creature which inhabits the coffee plantations of Sumatra. It's said to be special because the animals select only the very best beans to eat, and also because of the predigestion services that they provide which allegedly enhance the flavours.

Crap, say most serious coffee connoisseurs, using a rather well chosen word, in the circumstances.

100g packets of the stuff cost about $25 in a shop in Jogja, and $60 to $80 in the Jakarta airport duty free shops. Fortunately I'd done a bit of research on the stuff. It seems that there's now a big market in fake Kopi Luwak (of course, with those prices), and when it's real, it's produced in inhumane battery farm conditions these days. To confuse matters, there's a chain of coffee shops called 'Kopi Luwak', and they sell coffees, and packets of coffee beans, with that name, but which seemed to be totally conventional coffee.

So, what a load of crap! I'm with the kchronicles.com analysis of the situation, as per this cartoon.

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak