Civet
Cat Coffee has its origins from Indonasia. The history reaches back to 18th
century the Dutch Colonialism
in Java, Sumatra where Dutch prohibited native farmers from picking
up coffee beans for their own use. Natives have learned that certain species of
Luwak (Asian Palm Civets) consumed coffee cherries but excreted undigested
coffee beans. So natives, in a desire to have famed coffee, picked coffee beans
from feces of Luwak , then cleaned, roasted it lightly ground and prepared
their coffee. So the fame of this unique felt flavor of coffee spread from
natives to Dutch and then all over the world.
Asian Palm Civets are mammals native
to Southeast Asia. They resemble long-nosed cats. There are two mechanisms that improve the
flavor of civet cat coffee viz selection and digestion. Asian palm civets love
fresh coffee cherries. Civets move at night, sniffing out sweet red coffee
cherries and select the ripest and best cherries. Hence occurs the selection of
best cherries adding to coffee flavor. Civets chew the exterior of cherries and
then swallow the bean. In the digestive track of civet fermentation of beans
occur. The proteolytic enzymes act on
beans adding the flavor and breakdown the enzymes responsible for bitterness. It
results in unique, pleasant, smooth flavor of coffee. These beans are excreted
by civets which are collected and cleaned in hygienic way by farmers and
roasted lightly. Though the beans are in contact with faces and pathogenic
organisms, they contain negligible amounts of the enteric (pathogenic)
organisms associated with feces.
Similar
to Civet cat coffee there is bird poop coffee, prepared from the coffee seeds
found in the feces of the South African Jacu Bird. There is a new brand
emerging from Costa Rica called Bat Coffee. Here the bats feed on the coffee
cherries. The bats breaks the skin of the ripen cherries with their teeth. Bats
feed upon the cherry pulp and lick the sugar-rich mucilage. So the actual beans
of coffee are left on the tree, exposed to the sun and dried in natural way.
Then these beans are handpicked and processed. Vietnamese entrepreneurs said
that they have chemically treated the regular beans and have produced coffee of
the same luwak taste.
Sharp
rise in the demand for this luxurious civet cat coffee has affected its quality
of making. It has been reported that civets are isolated and kept in small
cages in awful condition and forcibly fed inferior beans such as Robusta. There
is ethical concern pointing out in the whole process of making expensive
coffee. On the other hand there may be a threat to wild varieties of civets. So
when the demand surpasses the production, quality may drop and someday the
natural process of making the civet cat coffee may fade away.
