Kopi Luwak isn't what's it's crapped up to be

I am not usually one to get caught up in charts and graphs of this coffee or that coffee from this or that part of the world but I do have strong opinions on one particular coffee. As I'm sure you may have guessed already what that opinion is.

I was first introduced to Kopi Luwak coffee by Jack Nicholson's character in the "Bucket List" movie of 2007. In the movie, two terminally ill men ( Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman ) escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die. On their trip, Jack Nicholson's character introduces Freeman to the the coffee and they have an exchange about the price.
Side note: I thought it was a great movie, you should definitely watch if you haven't already.

A civet farm in Liwa, a town in Sumatra, where the catlike animals eat coffee cherries. Their droppings contain coffee beans fermented in their stomachs.

Kopi luwak (Indonesian pronunciation: [ˈkopi ˈlu.aʔ]), or civet coffee, refers to the seeds of coffee berries once they have been eaten and defecated by the Asian palm civet. Considered a "luxury coffee" it rakes in up to $600 a pound retail. I thought it was something made up just for the movie. It wasn't until I looked it up after, that I believed it was a real thing. I asked myself. "who would ever drink coffee made from an Asian tree cat's poop?!" It's been about seven years and I still can't get past the Ick-factor!

And, to make the idea even less attractive I learned, do to increased interest in Kopi Luwak around the world, there is a growing Civet Cat farming industry based on feeding caged Civets coffee berries and little else. I won't get in to that now, it is a complex and controversial subject. The real focus of this post is the quality and flavor of civet coffee, or the lack there of.

A wild civet eats ripe Arabika coffee beans at a plantation which produces Luwak coffee on the Indonesian island of Bali.

Civet coffee is purported to have superior flavor complexity and acidity rivaled by none by those who drink it. The thought of which I could never believe. And apparently I am in good company who disbelieved the claim. Especially at $600 a pound.

I am happy to report Kopi is not all it's crapped up to be. In this article a group of coffee experts did a blind taste test, which apparently has not been done before with Kopi.

Jack Groot, owner of JP's Coffee & Espresso Bar in Holland Michigan, made the statement in a forum discussion “Let’s face it, there’s a sucker born every day. Anyone who thinks that $600 a pound coffee is $586 better tasting than my excellent Sumatra Mandheling either: 1. Stupid  2. Lying  3. Both“

By making that statement, the call for a blind taste test, challenging civet coffee against other (much cheaper) specialty coffees from the same region that sell in $16/lb range was on.

“...Anyone who thinks that $600 a pound coffee is $586 better tasting than my excellent Sumatra Mandheling (is) either: 1. Stupid  2. Lying  3. Both“

You can read Jack's complete re-telling of the challenge  in his own words.

Here's the short version: 
“It’s a very good coffee, but not worth $600 a pound.  If you bought it in a coffee shop, it would cost you $50 a cup,” says cupping judge Andy Timko, coffee roaster with Anodyne Coffee Roasters in Milwaukee.

Cupping judge Johni Medeiros, a coffee taster and quality control manager for Magnum Coffee Roasters in Nunica, Mich., wasn’t as kind in his assessment. “At $600 a pound, this is fool’s gold.  You are paying for the novelty of the coffee not the flavors,” Medeiros says.

The top Kopi Luwak sample “Kopi Gayo” came in with a taste test rating of 78.2 out of 100 points, a good score but below an Excellent rating of 90 or an Outstanding rating of 100.  One of the less pricey, non-cat poop coffees came in within 6/10ths of a point of Kopi Luwak and others were 3 to 7 points below the top score. The Kopi Gayo also got the highest individual sampling score of 85 points.

“We estimate that our test could have a plus or minus 3 to 5 percent accuracy, so the Kopi Luwak could be in the Excellent rating.  So would a few of the $16 a pound coffees,“ Groot says.

A long time ago I was told "always trust your gut instincts". And when I first heard about Kopi Luwak my gut was saying "there's something wrong with that." And now, as far as this writer is concerned, I have been proven correct. I say to you, money wasters... if you spend the money on coffee made from poop, you have too much money.

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Posted by Steven Prevost
Sources:  Special Coffee Retailer,  Coffeegroot.com,  Wikipedia, New York Times, IMDb.com and Phys.org