Rabu, 16 Maret 2011

Civet Coffee The rarest beverage in the world

How they get Kopi Luwak Coffee

Back in colonial era, which occurred during 1602 – 1945 in Indonesia, the Dutchmen forbid local farmers to consume the coffee harvested from ‘their’ plantations, therefore, coffee beans wrapped within civet pooh lying on the plantations soil were collected and further processed. It turned out that the coffee made from “these particular coffee beans” had better taste than the normal one.

Kopi Luwak Coffee is actually undigested coffee beans wraped up by feses as the remains of material that are expelled from civet's body. The beans are processed within civet's digestive system as they blend along with certain enzymes before they are expelled; Doctor Massimo Marcone, a scientist from Ontario, Canada believes that proteolytic enzymes within civets (Paradoxurus) reduces the caffeine level and causes substantial breakdown of protein, the animal enzymes also prevent caffeine jitters and bitter taste, altough right after they are expelled, the beans do have a faint smell like stables you usually smell at a zoo.

Prior to that, coffee farmers sort out the bad coffee from the high quality before the are served to the civets to be eaten. Basically, a farmer would only need the beans as the coffee cherries would be perfectly digested by civets. The beans that are expelled from civets are yellow in colors. Actually, a civet was once defined as pest for coffee plantation, but these days it becomes a favorite pet for coffee farmer after people discovered the smell and taste of coffee beans expelled by the animal. Many Indonesian farmer lend civets from others to digest coffee beans they produce from plantation.

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