Whether you call it Kopi Luwak or Civet Coffee, the java produced through the 'natural processing' system (AKA the digestive tract) of this cat-like marsupial from Indonesia has been given high marks (and prices!) in terms of cup quality around the world. But what many have considered an exotic yet expensive luxury bean is not just costly to the privileged coffee drinker, it recently has become costly to the lives of the producers -- the civets themselves. For those new to 'cat poop coffee,' Kopi Luwak 'is the product in which coffee cherries, the complete fruit of the coffee plant, are eaten by the palm civet cats of the far East, typically in Indonesia. The cats digest the cherries but excrete the inner beans, which are then roasted and brewed as any other coffee bean,' describes Boughton's Coffee House. Historically, these beans were harvested in a natural way -- foragers would search the forest floor for civet feces to find these beans. Since finding them was a lot of work and there was an arguably very small supply, it resulted in a high price -- a small cup could run between $30 - $50 and a pound of the stuff could cost upwards of $600. With those kinds of prices and a rise in popularity, however, this novelty bean has been transformed from a happy accident, as it were, into a factory-like production model designed to increase financial gain and meet the worldwide demand. Instead of foraging for the beans in the civets' natural habitat, they are now caging them and feeding them cherries in order to increase available output. 'With the sudden rise in popularity, the far majority of legitimate Kopi Luwak coffee sold today comes from grizzly civet cat farms where rows and rows of the enslaved creatures bred specifically for coffee production are kept in small cages and force-fed coffee cherries -- ripe or otherwise -- until they die,' states coffeestrategies.com. This ethically questionable method of harvesting Kopi Luwak has only come to light in the past few years, and there are reports that the average small farmer keeps around 102 civets and collects 550 pounds of processed coffee per month. Is their flavor worth their high price -- in terms of both monetary and ethical concerns? If you're a fan of Kopi Luwak, it's something only you can decide ... but we think it's well worth at least a few moments of healthy consideration.
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