Kopi Luwak

Coffee Luwak starts as any other Arabica bean, planted to a field and nurtured to perfect ripeness. In the villages near Bukittingi, this path takes a sudden detour from the usual.

At night, when its nocturnal eyes hunt best, the civet cat emerges from its lair to prey on helpless coffee beans just at the point of perfection.

3-4 days later, Umul Khairi’s team of contacts collects the remains of the civet’s meal and call her to say they have a delivery.

After collecting these bags of what she delightfully and repeatedly calls “civet poo” she and her team will turn these excreted coffee beans into what in the Western is considered a delicacy and highly prized and priced.

Shelled and winnowed, the beans are cooked for upwards of three hours over a cinnamon-wood fire to prepare them for packaging and to ensure they stay fresh as she ships them to her customers in Europe , the US, and Australia.

Judging from the small mountain of ready-to-cook beans in Umul’s house, business is booming in the cat-poo coffee.