Civet coffee | Michael Weening: a few pictures

Is it the best coffee?

The prices would indicate that it needs to be. At the plantation 200g of coffee is $100USD. In town, 50g of beans is $150USD.

It is a great experience on the farm, starting with a full tasting of their coffees, tea and cocoa. There is a pineapple coffee, and a host of others topped off with amazing cocoa.

They then ask if you would like to buy a cup of Civet coffee for $5USD a glass. It struck me as humorous that people pay $5 multi-times a day for a simple Starbucks. We ordered 3. They bring out a “made in Japan” coffee brewing system, that looks intriguing to me.

The water slowly moves up into the container above and then filters back down.

The pour.

I normally drink my coffee with a little cream and honey.

In this case, it seemed heresy to try it with something in it, so I drank the Civet coffee straight up. It was smooth, bold and surprisingly, without any bitter aftertaste.

Is it the best coffee in the world? It might just be.

I am curious what others think .. have you had it? Do you consider it the world’s best coffee bean? If not .. what is?

Thanks for dropping in.

One of our stops in Bali was a coffee plantation that serves Civet coffee, or Kopi Luwak coffee.

The coffee is made from coffee berries that have been eaten by the Asian Palm Civet, excreted and processed.

Producers of the coffee beans argue that the process may improve coffee through two mechanisms, selection and digestion. Selection occurs if the civets choose to eat coffee cherries containing better beans. Digestive mechanisms may improve the flavour profile of the coffee beans that have been eaten. The civet eats the berries for the beans’ fleshy pulp, then in the digestive tract, fermentation occurs. The civet’s proteolytic enzymes seep into the beans, making shorter peptides and more free amino acids.^[2] Passing through a civet’s intestines the beans are then defecated with other fecal matter and collected.

I love coffee. I am on my 2nd Jura and I start each day by making cappuccinos for myself and Narda. On Saturday and Sundays I usually follow that up with an espresso.

We arrived at Luwak Civet Coffee Farm in the rain. It really isn’t a farm, it is retail establishment with a tour, coffee tasting and the opportunity to buy Civet coffee. I had my Canon 5D Mark III with the 28-70mm for the tour.

The grounds are beautiful. Coffee berries enjoying the rain.

Oh durian, you sweet smelling fruit … and acquired taste. They clearly enjoy it on the plantation.

There were a couple of these around the farm; they are bee hives made of animal hair.

Looking out on the jungle, I was amazed at how thick it is. My son hypothesized that the lack of farmable land was a key contributor to the economic differentiation between Europe/NA and countries such as Bali … The AP history class is going well.