Monday, April 6, 2009

Coffee Knowledge

         I found this information through wikipedia but I heard it from the movie called The Bucket List. It is about a very very special coffee n the world and I would like to dedicate this post to my cell leader Jenny Helena Sieh because she is a coffee addict. Maybe not addict but she hungers for it Everyday. Anyways here it goes.

          Kopi Luwak pronounced kopi luwak or Civet coffee is coffee made from coffee berries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The civets eat the berries, but the beans inside pass through their system undigested. This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago, in the Philippines (where the product is called Kape Alamid) and in East Timor (locally called kafé-laku).

          Vietnam has a similar type of coffee, called weasel coffee, which is made from coffee berries which have been regurgitated by local weasels. In actuality the "weasel" is just the local version of the Asian Palm Civet. Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee, and luwak is a local name of the Asian Palm Civet. The raw, red coffee berries are part of its normal diet, along with insects, small mammals, small reptiles, eggs and nestlings of birds, and other fruit.

          The inner bean of the berry is not digested, but it has been proposed that enzymes in the stomach of the civet add to the coffee's flavor by breaking down the proteins that give coffee its bitter taste. The beans are defecated, still covered in some inner layers of the berry. The beans are washed, and given only a light roast so as to not destroy the complex flavors that develop through the process. Some sources claim that the beans may be regurgitated instead of defecated.

          In early days, the beans would be collected in the wild from a "latrine," or a specific place where the civet would defecate as a means to mark its territory, and these latrines would be a predictable place for local gatherers to find the beans. More commonly today, captured civets are fed raw berries, the feces produced are then processed and the coffee beans offered for sale. Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and the United States. 

          So what this actually means is that the beans are eaten by animals and they then poop/crap/shit/ta pien/buang air besar/taik it out from their body. The people nearby then take IT and somehow process it and sell it throughout the world for a really really expensive price. Before I leave this post, I just wanna say that this is freaking interesting and I would like to try this pooped coffee drink. As disgusting as it may sound I would still like to try it. 

P.S = Jenny you should save money and try buying it from C-Bay ( Coffee Bay ). No not E-Bay,             C-Bay. Lol just kidding.

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