Are you ready to pay $ 30 or even $ 50 for just one cup of coffee? That is how much the most expensive coffee in the world costs - “Copy Luwak”. Such a high price is due to the complexity and complexity of the production process of this variety. No more than 270 kilograms of real Luvak elite coffee are received per year. The cost of one kilogram of grains ranges from 400 to 1,500 dollars.
To drink this very cup of “Luwak” coffee, you need to be a person not only rich, but also not squeamish, because the process of processing beans is quite peculiar.
Coffee trees for this type of coffee grow on farms located on some islands of Indonesia - Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi. In addition to trees, these farms contain small animals with sad eyes, similar to cats - musangs, or palm civet. In the local Indonesian dialect, they are called "Luwak", and "Mine" - coffee. From these two words the name came.
Musanga eat ripe fruits of coffee trees - coffee cherries. In the digestive tract of the animal, the flesh surrounding the coffee beans is digested, and the beans themselves are saturated with enzymes and leave unchanged. Farm workers collect animal excrement, dry, separate the precious fruits, wash them thoroughly, dry them again in the sun, and then lightly fry them so as not to harm the original aroma. Until the moment when people realized that coffee beans processed by Luwak can be used to make a drink, they considered these predatory animals to be pests.
The musbang’s gastric juice contains cybetine, which gives the “Luwak” coffee a special bright taste. Lovers and connoisseurs of coffee - real coffee lovers - say that the taste of Luwak coffee is balanced, with a slight bitterness, hints of chocolate, nougat, honey and butter. The drink leaves a long lasting and pleasant aftertaste. By the way, in the homeland you can drink a cup of “Copy Luwak” coffee for only five dollars.
Wild musangs - animals are very picky, sort of coffee gourmets. They pick only the best, most ripe coffee berries. To attract wild musangs to the coffee farm, farmers leave them with berry baskets lit by torchlight at night. From a kilogram, animals can select only twelve grains. In the morning, workers collect excrement left by animals.
On the “Luwak” coffee farms, the animals do not have such freedom of choice, they have to eat the coffee beans that the owner gives, which makes the quality of the drink somewhat lower. This explains the fluctuation in the price of a kilogram of “Luwak” coffee: “wild” costs much more than “farmer”. But to reproduce the process of grain fermentation in an artificial way, without the participation of animals, the producers of “Kopi Luwak” failed.
The high cost of coffee is due to several facts. Firstly, each musanga eats about one kilogram of coffee berries per day, and the output is only 50 grams of Luwak coffee beans. Secondly, the enzyme necessary for processing grains in the gastrointestinal tract of animals is produced in their body only six months a year. In order not to feed the animals for six months idle, the farmers set them free, and then catch them again. Thirdly, in captivity, musanga do not breed, and their number has to be increased due to wild individuals.