Kopi Luwak

There is a kind of coffee that I have been famous for a long time, but I have never tasted it, or, more precisely, I have never dared to taste it. This is the famous Kopi Luwak. The fault lies in the word "cat shit". How smelly cat shit is, but the coffee merchant is named after it. Do you dare to taste it?

Coincidentally, on the eve of my 90th birthday last year, my neighbor Ms. Zhou Wen called me and asked me if I had had a Kopi Luwak. My heart was tight, and she said, "No," she said, "well, I'll buy it for you and give it to you. Taste it. I asked her if she smelled of cat poop. She laughed and said you were waiting for nausea." sure enough, the next afternoon he brought me a large square box lined with sponge cushions and a fine cloth bag with a cat jumping on it, while the real coffee was only 100 grams.

The origin of Kopi Luwak can be easily found on the Internet. It is native to Sumatra, Indonesia, where there is a wild civet that lives on trees and likes to eat mature coffee fruit, but the fruit is eaten only with a layer of skin and flesh outside, and the hard core, that is, coffee beans, is excreted intact in the feces, washed and baked to become Kopi Luwak. Kopi Luwak is particularly sweet and delicious, and it is said that the secret is that most coffee needs to be fermented artificially, but Kopi Luwak naturally ferments in cats, the protein of the coffee is destroyed, and the bitterness of the coffee is greatly reduced. the taste of coffee is also more mellow and sweet.

To tell you the truth, I dare not fully believe the above revelations. The cat's belly is so amazing that when the coffee beans turn around inside, there will be earth-shaking changes, teaching people to praise it and worship it. But Ms. Zhou's kind gift can't be left empty there, can it? So I made up my mind to have a try. Since the judgment cannot be decided by one person, I specially invited two bosom friends, Tang Weijie, associate professor of Chinese language and literature of Tongji University, and Huang Xiaofeng, editor of the Oriental Morning Post, to verify it with me. What's more, there is identification because of the comparison. in addition to Kopi Luwak, I also prepare Colombian coffee and Italian coffee, three kinds of coffee are also electroground and cooked by trickling filter.

On the day of the trial, there were ten coffee cups on the long table, and everyone sat around the table in high spirits. Let's try the drink. Let's look at the coffee beans first. Italian coffee beans are black and bright, round and full, and sell best. Colombian coffee is the best coffee in Arabica coffee, famous for its aroma, smaller grains and lighter color. Cat poop coffee beans are flat, of different sizes, and have many broken grains, which is caused by workers squeezing in the process of picking up and washing beans. Taste the coffee again. Three different kinds of coffee are poured into three different cups and tasted in turn. Colombian coffee is a top product with good taste, color, smell and taste, but it is a little more acidic. Italian coffee is characterized by thick and thick coffee. Only it can make a real ESPRESSO, which naturally tastes more bitter. As soon as Kopi Luwak made its debut, everyone looked strange, as if they really wanted a mouthful of cat shit soup. Of course, this is a joke. Kopi Luwak is really good, strong, fragrant and sweet, but Jie frowned and said it was a bit like burnt brown sugar. Xiaofeng has always been a "clear currant", but this time he made an exception and added a lot of Sanhua light milk to dilute the caramel flavor. The wife and daughter create a rustic taste with delicate products peculiar to women, thinking that blue mountain coffee is better than pure fragrance. They use a visual analogy: if blue mountain coffee is a young girl without powder, then Kopi Luwak is a half-old Xu Niang with a lot of make-up.

My own view is: the beauty of coffee is that it is a little bitter, a little sour, a little astringent, neither bitter nor sour is not my favorite!

After the tasting was over, I sat alone and thought about it after the guests left. When I tried Kopi Luwak for the first time, I felt good, at least it satisfied my curiosity. But the question is, is it worth paying such a high price just for a little bit of richness or enjoyment on the tip of the tongue? Kopi Luwak once sold for as much as $30 a cup in the United States. Some coffee merchants are said to have caged wild musk cats to increase production, desperately feeding them coffee fruits like stuffed ducks, while others simply mixed other brands of coffee into Kopi Luwak. At present, individual coffee merchants have adopted the method of attaching a certificate of origin to advertise their products as "authentic", which is ironic.