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Kopi Luwak (pronounced [ˈkopi ˈluwak]) or Civet coffee is coffee made from coffee berries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The civets eat the berries but the beans inside pass through their system undigested. This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago, and in the Philippines (where the product is called Kape Alamid). Vietnam has a similar type of coffee, called weasel coffee which are coffee berries which have been defecated by local weasels. In actuality the "weasel" is just the local version of the Asian Palm Civet.

Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and United States. It is increasingly becoming available elsewhere, though supplies are limited: only 1,000 pounds (450 kg) at most make it into the world market each year (Pg 23, The Gospel According to Starbucks; Sweet). One small cafe, the Heritage Tea Rooms, in the hills outside Townsville in Queensland, Australia has Kopi Luwak coffee on the menu at A$50.00 per cup. The locals line up for it, and it has gained nationwide press.
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A hypothesis to justify this coffee's reputation proposes that the beans are of superior quality before they are even ingested; though this is not to say that the digestive enzymes play no role. At any given point during a harvest, some coffee berries are not quite- or over-ripe, while others are just right. The palm civet evolved as an omnivore that naturally eats fruit and passes undigested material as a natural link to disperse seeds in a forest ecosystem. Where coffee plants have been introduced into their habitat, civets forage on the most ripe berries, digest fleshy outer layer, and later excrete the seeds eventually used for human consumption. Thus, when the fruit is at its peak, the seeds (or beans) within are equally so, with the expectation that this will come through in the taste of a freshly-brewed cup. As this may be true for the beans derived from wild-collected civet feces, farm raised civets are likely fed beans of varying quality and ripeness, so one would expect the taste of farm-raised beans to be less.

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Coffee Facts

The New York Stock Exchange started out as a coffee house.

It takes five years for a coffee tree to reach maturity.

On East Coast U.S. flights "regular" coffee is with milk and sugar; on the West Coast, "regular" coffee is black.

Coffee is not successful at sobering up a drunk person.

Filter coffee contains 65 to 120 milligrams of caffeine.

Brewed tea has an average of 40 mg of caffeine per serving.

A can of cola has between 38-45mg of caffeine.

An ounce of dark chocolate has 20mg of caffeine and an ounce of milk chocolate 6mg.

Over the course of one year, a coffee tree produces 1.5 pounds of coffee.

Instant coffee contains 60 to 85 milligrams of caffeine.

The rarest coffee in the world is Kopi Luwak, which is found in Indonesia.

Coffee beans were chewed for more than 400 years before the first cup of coffee was brewed.

Coffee was imported into Europe for the first time in 1517.

Coffee beans are not beans, but the pits of a fruit that resemble beans.

The bubbles in coffee can tell you what the day’s weather will be.

In Turkey, in the sixteenth century, anyone caught drinking coffee was put to death.

Coffee is the second most traded product in the world after petroleum.

Seniors who drink regular coffee before a memory test score higher than those who drink decaffeinated.

Coffea arabica accounts for about 70% of world coffee production.
Brazil, is responsible for 30 to 40 % of total coffee output.

It takes 42 coffee beans to make an espresso.

Cappuccino is named for the resemblance of its color to the robes of the monks of the Capuchin order.

97 percent of caffeine must be removed from coffee for it to be labeled "decaffeinated."

Maxwell House, is named after the hotel in Nashville Tennessee, where the original blend was served in 1886.

The Coffee Cantata was written by Johann Sebastian Bach.

A shot of espresso contains 30 to 50 milligrams of caffeine.

By Sarah Toms BBC News, Manila

Beans for a unique cup of coffee

The Philippines has recently discovered it produces one of the world's most expensive and coveted kinds of coffee.

But it comes from an unusual source - the droppings of a nocturnal, cat-like animal called the palm civet.

Civets, related to the mongoose, are usually seen as pests in the Philippines and hunted for their meat.

But their droppings are worth their weight in gold.

Known locally as alamid, civets are carnivorous but they also have a taste for the sweet, red coffee cherries that contain the beans.

The beans pass through the civet whole after fermenting in the stomach and that's what gives the coffee its unique taste and aroma.

'Best-kept secret'

A group of professional coffee lovers followed the trail of the civet droppings high into the Malarayat mountain range, south of Manila, in search of the exotic beans.

Civets are seen as pests in the Philippines

One of them, Antonio Reyes of the Philippine coffee certifying board, said civet coffee was one of the Philippines' best-kept secrets.

"I heard the old folks in the coffee farming areas have been gathering this coffee for their own consumption. They never told people they had this kind of coffee," he said.

"It goes through some kind of natural processing which you can see from the roasted beans. It's more oily, there's more aroma and it's such a good taste that you can get value for money even if the cost is so high."

Civet coffee is one of the world's most expensive. In the Philippines, only 500 kg are produced a year and the roasted beans sell for more than $115 a kilogram.

Bean hunt

Lusina Montenegro, who collects the beans for a living, led the coffee experts to the civet droppings.

Finding and preparing the beans is labour-intensive work

She climbs the mountain in her flip-flops, hunting for the beans in the thick undergrowth.

"Sometimes it's a big civet and then the droppings are also big, but sometimes it's a small one and then the droppings are small," she said.

Ms Montenegro puts the droppings in two containers - for the old ones, which resemble chalky beans, and for the fresh ones, which look like yellow beans in gravy.

She rinses the beans in forest streams and dries them on her patio before they are sold on to Bote Central, a company that exports the beans to Japan.

Niche market

The developers of the brand are a husband and wife team, Vie and Basil Reyes.

The couple was involved in conservation work for the sugar palm and the civets that live among the trees. They made organic vinegar from the palms and started selling the civet coffee alongside it in small bazaars.

Now the coffee has become so successful they are hoping to start brewing up profits in Taiwan and North America.

Mr Reyes of the coffee certifying agency also hopes the struggling local coffee industry can mirror the success Indonesia and Vietnam have enjoyed with their brands of civet coffee.

"I never thought it was also available in the Philippines, so when I first heard of it I thought this is one kind of coffee that we can look at and develop," he said. "If we have the volume then it's good for the niche market."

'Dark chocolate'

Andrew Gross, an Australian roast master, climbed the mountain to find out for himself what the attraction is of coffee that passes through the backside of a furry mammal.

Mr Gross said the coffee had 'some substance'

Just like a wine connoisseur, he slowly slurped the brewed coffee, letting it travel across his tongue for the first time.

Mr Gross said he was surprised at how much he liked it, comparing the taste to fermented plum and dark chocolate with hazelnuts.

"There's obviously some substance to this in terms of what waves I am getting, but beyond the difference in flavours a lot of it has to do with hype and a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's fairly rare," he said.

It may not be everyone's cup of tea. But experts here hope coffee lovers will want to treat themselves to something special that might just help perk up the Philippine coffee industry.

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