kopiluwak“Kopi Luwak – the rarest beverage in the world. Take a whiff, go ahead…” said Jack Nicholson, playing his role as Edward Cole in the movie The Bucket List (2007).

‘Kopi’ is the Indonesian word for coffee, and ‘Luwak’, is a local Sumatran name for the civets, the cat-like animal that “processes” the coffee beans that are considered as one of the most expensive and rarest of coffees. The production of these extraordinary coffee beans originated in the islands of Indonesia including Sumatra, Bali, Java, and Sulawesi. Today, production and cultivation of Kopi Luwak beans extends to areas such as Vietnam, Thailand and other countries around Indonesia.

Too Good To Be True

Would you be surprised if someone told you that this coveted yet luxurious coffee is the product of cat faeces? Often labelled as “too good to be true!”, its method of production is what makes Kopi Luwak unique and renown worldwide. Every bean has passed through the digestive system of an Asian Palm Civet.

These nocturnal cat-like animals were once regarded as pests for climbing the coffee trees and eating the coffee cherries. It’s different now – they are encouraged. The civets are renowned for being extremely fussy eaters and will gorge themselves on coffee cherries – but only the reddest, ripest, sweetest and most perfect cherries. While they favour the coffee cherries, they are also known to enjoy fruit such as bananas, insects, reptiles and small mammals. The civets typically only choose one or two cherries from each tree; they seem to be able to differentiate the perfect cherries from the rest.

Exquisite Taste

It is claimed that Kopi Luwak’s exquisite taste is the result of the beans being naturally fermented in the enzymes in the stomach of the civets. The key is the civets need to be free to roam around the coffee trees, so they can select the ripest cherries and therefore the best beans. Each morning farmers collect the faeces or skat from the civets, which contains the fermented coffee beans. Then the beans are cleaned and dried in the sun, before being roasted.

According to Mandailing Estate Coffee “the intestinal enzymes and juices of the Luwak are a perfect mix to digest the flesh of the cherry, but not digest the coffee bean itself. Instead, the enzymes penetrate the husk just enough to remove any bitterness from the bean – leaving an almost perfectly processed 100% natural coffee bean.”

Authentic Kopi Luwak is categorised as a naturally processed coffee because of its organic fermentation process within the digestive system of the civets. However some farmers do contradict this idea by capturing or keeping the animals in a limited boundary or even on cages, and some do consider that using the animals to generate profits for the farmers crosses the line of animal liberation.

Authentic Kopi Luwak

Due to its rareness and exquisite taste, Luwak beans go for extremely high price in markets. This also attracts fraudsters who try to market beans that have been force fed to civets in cages or simply relabel ordinary coffee beans – so buyer beware! Reports vary on the price, ranging from $220 per kilo to $1400 per kilo. Naturally finding a café that serves a cup of this delicacy is not easy. There are two cafés in Sydney, in St Leonards and in Naremburn, and another in Townsville where you may be able to taste the elusive cup.

"The aroma is smoky and pungent and even somewhat reminiscent of its immediate origin but the flavour is unique, mild and smooth with a hint of rich dark chocolate and secondary notes of earth and musk", says Peter Cave, ABC foreign correspondent.

The flavour itself can vary, due to the Luwaks diet, but experts tells us that the Luwak coffee is always much more full bodied in the cup – its almost like syrup. The flavour is rich with hints of caramel, chocolate and generally sweeter than you would expect. They also add “the finish has a very long smooth clean aftertaste that lingers far longer than coffee processed any other way and the remarkable lack of acidity really differentiates this from other coffees. There is no bitterness, no acid, no dry throat.”

Where to find a cup:

  • Forsyth Café, Naremburn – book ahead
  • Olio Brasserie, St Leonards
  • Harvey’s Heritage Tea Room, Townsville


Written by Anita Bong

Editing and additional research by Suze Chalmers


Image credit: Luwak Coffee Beans by Ronnie Liew via Flickr Creative Commons

Also see the organic section of our directory.