The truth about the origin of Kopi Luwak Kopi Luwak-who on earth hyped Kopi Luwak?

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For coffee connoisseurs, the coffee fruit picked from the tree, no matter how good the variety, region and climate, is not as good as the coffee beans collected from the "gold" pulled by Indonesian wildlife.

Legend has it that the rarest and most upscale coffee beans, called "Kopi Luwak", are not harvested artificially, but by the Indonesian wild Luwak civet (Civet), which uses its appetite to screen out the best quality beans for coffee gluttons.

The Indonesian word "Kopi" means "coffee", while "Luwak" refers to an arboreal wild animal commonly known as "musk cat" in Indonesia, whose zoological name is Paradoxurus hermaphroditus, but it is actually different from the so-called civets in Taiwan. They are both family Viverridae, but Subfamily is different, one is Paradoxurinae, the other is Viverridae, and Luwak belongs to Palm Civet translated as palm cat. Viverridae belongs to Civet and translates into civet, that is, civet, but both are commonly known as civets.

Kopi Luwak is produced in Jawa, Sumatera and Sulawesi in Indonesia.

Because the range of Luwak civets is at low and middle elevations, most of the coffee varieties are robusta beans, while Arabica beans at high altitudes are rarer. Luwak civets are nocturnal animals. When Luwak civets look for food at night, through their keen sense of smell, they only choose the most ripe, sweet, juicy coffee fruits in coffee trees to eat. The fruit breaks down the outer flesh through the enzymes of its digestive system, but the hard core is still excreted intact without digestion. During digestion, the stomach acid of Luwak Musk Cat breaks down the bitter substance "protein" of coffee beans, and special intestinal bacteria ferment to produce unparalleled changes, its flavor becomes unique, the taste is particularly mellow, and the rich, round and sweet taste is also incomparable to other coffee beans. So the Indonesian fermented coffee beans from Luwak civets are collected, dried, washed, shelled, selected and roasted to produce the rarest, most unique and most precious coffee in the world. This is the Kopi Luwak coffee that Indonesia paid tribute to the Dutch royal family at US $600 a pound. It is said that not only does the British royal family like its mellow flavor, but in five-star restaurants everywhere, a cup of Kopi Luwak costs $30.

For people who read newspapers with coffee every morning, $30 for a cup of coffee may be too much, so Canadian food scientist Massimo Marcone wants to study the big deal of coffee beans pulled out by cats.

In his research, he found that the digestive system of Luwak civets does reduce caffeine in coffee beans, making Kopi Luwak unlike other stronger coffees, which can cause palpitations. The enzymes in their stomachs break down the proteins that make the coffee bitter, making it taste better.

Los Angeles Times reported that Massimo Marcone was in the Sumatra rainforest before the 2004 earthquake on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. He collected about 10 pounds of Luwak civet droppings, removed coffee beans from them and took them back to the Guelph University Laboratory in Ontario, Canada.

He looked at the coffee beans under an electron microscope and tried to separate the traces left by the secretions of Luwak civets from the appearance of the beans. And his research found that consumers who like to drink Kopi Luwak should beware of being deceived. Because about 42% of the civet coffee on the market is mixed with other coffee beans or completely impersonated by other coffee beans.

Massimo Marcone, a scientist, said that the real Kopi Luwak tasted bitter chocolate when it was first introduced, while it smelled of dirt and mildew in the throat. But lovers of Indonesian coffee will describe it as the fragrance of the land in the air after rain, with the sweet smell of vanilla. After drinking the coffee, the smell will remain in the cup for hours.

Other coffee beans in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, for example, may have a better balance in aroma and taste, but they do not have the special flavor left by Luwak civets. Moreover, Kopi Luwak coffee beans may be getting rarer and rarer.

According to local Indonesian legend, villagers have discovered centuries ago that coffee beans selected from the excrement of Luwak civets can make the most palatable coffee. At that time, Indonesia was still a Dutch colony, and all the coffee beans harvested from the coffee trees had to be handed over to their lords, and only Luwak civets were their only coffee suppliers.

Today, the world's only producer of Kopi Luwak coffee is Indonesia, but fewer Luwak civets forage on coffee farms, and coffee beans "made" are even more scarce.

In addition to coffee fruits, Luwak civets also like to eat cocoa, bananas, papayas and other fruits. And it's not easy just to find their feces. Usually, the poop of Luwak civets is buried in the soil and fallen leaves, and it is not easy to see. Even veteran Kopi Luwak collectors may mistake squirrel or bat feces for Luwak civets.

The 1-pound Luwak civets collect only about 5 ounces of coffee beans, causing about 20% loss during baking. It produces only about 50-1000 pounds a year, but it is supplied all over the world.

Tom Kilty, an American coffee importer, says it is hard to buy a real Kopi Luwak in the United States. He traveled to Indonesia in 1989 to find a reliable source of supply. Around 1999, European coffee suppliers sold Kopi Luwak at $120 a pound, but he didn't think it was the real thing. "until now, I am still looking for it." He said.

In Indonesia, Luwak civets are becoming more and more difficult to survive because of the increase in human population, making their habitat smaller and smaller. In order to make a living, Indonesian farmers have reclaimed hillsides and planted pepper, cocoa, coffee and rubber trees.

On the other hand, Luwak civets come and go freely in the orchard, eating not only coffee fruits, but also other fruits, some of the more aggressive Luwak civets, and even attack farm chickens. If it grows to more than 100 pounds, its sharp claws and size look terrible, not to mention their delicious meat, and locals are happy to hunt them.

Ponirin Suparlan, a 45-year-old Indonesian farmer, says Luwak civets are the enemy of farmers. He earns just $600 a year on rubber, coffee beans and occasional Luwak civet droppings. He would rather eat Luwak civets than let Luwak civets eat his crops.

Under such circumstances, even farmers in the area are not sure how many wild Luwak civets are still alive. But their poop is getting harder to find year by year, and it's obvious that their numbers are getting smaller.

People who specialize in collecting Kopi Luwak earn $3 for every kilogram of coffee beans sold, almost twice as much as ordinary coffee beans. However, for foreign buyers, this is nothing at all. Mixing regular coffee into Kopi Luwak and selling it under the name Kopi Luwak to East Asia or the United States is a common way to make exorbitant profits.

Kopi Luwak's business is a cut-throat business. Not only do people who know where to find "poop", like gold prospectors in the past, nervously protect their "trade secrets", buyers also take great pains to get the maximum benefit by deception.

The first person to hype Kopi Luwak-Susanto is a shrimp farmer who produces Kopi Luwak coffee beans as a sideline. He and his relatives have produced more than 440 pounds of Kopi Luwak coffee in the past three years and are supposed to be rich by now. They used the ancient method to make a fire with wood and stir-fry raw beans in iron pots and soil kilns. After baking, they pounded the dark brown coffee beans into powder with a mallet in a large stone mortar.

But he has lost $15000 to expand his business. Susanto packages the world's most expensive coffee as a free sample, sends it to potential buyers around the world, and then waits for a reply that has never been heard from before. He was deceived by many Indonesian or foreign agents who wanted to buy Kopi Luwak at a low price and sell it at a high price.

Susanto had kept the secret of producing Kopi Luwak watertight, but later he decided to let reporters cover it. Using secrecy, he took the reporter to a location two hours' drive from the city of Bandar Lampung in southern Sumatra.

Susanto believes that the best way to ensure Kopi Luwak production is to raise Luwak civets. He caught 17 Luwak civets, kept them in cages made of wire and bamboo, and gave them names.

Their feed is coffee fruit, grapes, other fruits, and fresh milk. Although they are spoiled, several of them are still dead, others break through the cage and escape, and now there are only nine left.

Susanto's dream is to raise $60, 000 to build a civet nature reserve so that Luwak civets can live in a safe environment and produce the best Kopi Luwak coffee selected by their natural intuition.