Luwak Coffee @ Bali

Luwak Coffee or Civet Coffee is one of the ‘exotic’ foods that I had heard of many times from friends who visited Bali. Not to forget that this is also the most expensive coffee in the world!

What made Luwak Coffee so different from other coffee is the way the beans were harvested. Civet is known for its fondness for coffee beans and most likely the expert in its field. It is believed that they will only eat the best coffee beans. So farmers collect its poos and harvest those undigested beans. Sound yucky but surprisingly it doesn’t smell that bad. Most probably because it smell more like coffee than any other thing you can imagine.

Basically I am drinking cat’s poo here. The taste of the coffee is not as extraordinary as I imagine. Maybe its the way the coffee was prepared. Hot water (no temperature control) is simply added to the grinded coffee beans without even bother of filtering. Okay, that's very ordinary especially when you are enjoying a cup of coffee (most expensive) in the orchard. You might not expect a smartly dressed barista to serve you a cup of luwak coffee with coffee art and some fancy stuff here right? We had some great time chatting with the local young lady who serve us the coffee. She also walk us through the orchard/garden, showing us tress and fruits that we (Malaysian) already knew =)

 This poor fella look so sad =’(

I do not know exactly how they collect those poos. If the rivet was caged and fed with beans, then I do not literally see the logic behind the 'special' harvesting method. Civet should be left free in the wild to select the best beans. Not forcing them to eat just to get their poos. Buying Luwak coffee seems like supporting animal abuse here.