Poop Coffee | The Kopi Luwak

The world is full of wonders and mysterious things. It’s also full of weird and absurd things and one of those things is the worlds most expensive coffee, or should I say, the process of making it.

Hey guys! Are you a coffee lover like me? Then chances are you’ve already heard about this unique coffee. It is called Kopi Luwak and originates from Indonesia but around the world it is commonly known as the poop coffee and that is because this particular coffee is made with beans that are harvested in the litter that comes from the Asian palm civet. If this is the first time hearing this I suspect your first thought is disgust, but let me explain the process too you.

The wild civets loves the coffee sherries and because of their sensitive nose they are able to choose & eat the ripest coffee cherries. The cherries are then digested in the stomach of the civet but the beans are left intact. After the cherries have been digested the beans passes through the rest of the digestion system, leaving behind the highest quality beans in the civets poop. The poop is then collected by people searching for it in the forest before it is cleaned & roasted - removing any fetal bacteria in the process, until all that is left is a roasted -expensive- coffee bean. It must take forever to gather up poop in the wild so it’s not really a big surprise why this kind of coffee can sell for up to 100$ a cup or up to 600$ per 500g according to most-expensive.coffee. Now, this process sounds kind of cool and nice doesn’t it?

THE BAD REPUTATION

I had heard about the poop coffee before I came to Indonesia and I knew I wanted to try it, during a day tour around the Ubud area I got the opportunity to try it while I visited a coffee & tea plantation. I didn’t think more of it at first and I believed what the guides told us. - That they collected the poop the natural way, in the wild and only had a couple of examples in cages for the tourists to see. These ‘‘examples’’, as they called them, were changed regularly and released back into the wild. How naive I was. I was gonna write this post, warn you about the bad places and give you recommendations on farms and plantations which still does it the old, natural way, but after a lot of googling I am none the wiser. I managed to find a certificate, but then I found more.. and it doesn’t seems to be a way to check if a certificate is valid or not. Even National Geographic has written about the disturbing secret behind the world’s most expensive coffee. PETA, The Guardian, BBC, Daily coffee news, Business Insider & The sun are also warning about the ethical concern regarding the Kopi Luwak coffee. Even bloggers like Intrepid travel & coffee or die have talked about it.

Source: Google image search: ‘‘kopi luwak certificate of authenticity’’

WILD OR CAGED - HOW DO YOU KNOW?

After all the research I have done, I have come to one conclusion - The sad truth is that you can’t. According to pretty much every page I’ve listed higher up, you can never be 100% sure. Not even if your Kopi Luwak coffee has the “wild-sourced” certificate.

BAWA (Bali animal welfare association) has written 5 facts about the Kopi Luwak coffee and they urge tourists not to buy or visit these kind of farms and plantations. I can’t make the decision for you, all I can say is that if I knew then what I know now when I was in Indonesia, I would have kindly declined the offer to try this exclusive coffee and instead focused on the other coffee & tea that they offered at the plantation. In all honesty, the coffee is way over-hyped and doesn’t deserve the praise its been given, especially considering the circumstances. Knowledge is power my friend and if you ever get the chance to try this coffee, I truly hope -for the sake of the animals- that it is sourced from wild & free civets, but since there is no guarantee so far.. well. The decision is all yours.

With that said, I hope you liked this post and all I ask of you if you like my blog and wants me to continue creating content is to not only pop in for a visit every now and then but to also Like, Save, Comment & share my posts on social media. That way I am able to see if what I’m writing is appreciated by you. That was everything for now, and until next time, take care! xo Nathalie