Mai and the best coffee in the world - Coffee Luwak (Civet Coffee)

I live in Melbourne, one of the cities of the world where there is a strong appreciation for a good coffee. Sourcing, roasting and the art of making a good coffee is competitive here and consumers benefit greatly from a high standard of coffee as a result. But there is one grind that you will not find at a Barista in Melbourne or in most places around the world for that matter.

The coffee I speak of is called Kopi Luwak (meaning coffee Luwak) and it is the rarest and most expensive coffee in the world. Oprah recognised it as being so and it also made Morgan Freeman’s “Bucket List”.

The coffee is sourced from the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi.

As all of you know, I LOVE coffee and after realising I will be in Indonesia I made it my mission to find this rare, tastiest and the most expensive coffee in the world.

Kopi Luwak - Coffee Luwak

What it is that makes this coffee so rare, expensive and unique? Is it because locals trek deep into caverns to hand pick the cherries from a rare bush? No. It is not the work that is done by people which makes it special; it is the work that is carried out by an animal called a civet (known to locals as the Luwak).

The civet is a cat like creature that lives and travels through the trees.  One of the trees they like to climb is the coffee tree where they would eat the coffee berries much to the dismay of locals and farmers. To make matters worse, they know how to choose the best berries for eating. It is not exactly known why the practice began, perhaps out of resourcefulness, but locals began to retrieve the coffee beans from the excreted cherries of the civet.

The natural fermentation process that occurs during the digestion of the berries created a uniquely aromatic and flavoursome coffee that cannot be replicated by human processing. This process of making Kopi Luwak is what helps to make it the rarest and most expensive coffee in the world.

The Search for Kopi Luwak

I did my homework, asked many locals and eventually found this little piece of heaven! I had finally found the plantation that farmed Coffee Luwak.

This coffee plantation used civets from the wild and kept them caged for 3-6 months. The civets don’t just eat coffee berries, they are also feed dry fish, rice for breakfast, cat food for dinner and then coffee beans for dinner. After 6 months they are released back into the wild.

The Civet - Responsible for the world's most expensive coffee

Mai and Civet

The surrounding coffee plantations were so beautiful and fertile - they can grow anything from strawberries and other fruits and vegetables.  The plantation was very remote so you are basically living like a local, ie bad roads, bad accommodation, bad food although I can’t complain because things were very cheap, coke was $0.30c and meals were only $1 (Nasi Goreng - IndonesianFried Rice).

Mai at Coffee Plantation - surrounded by seedlings :)

The remote and serene surroundings around coffee plantation

Plenty of fresh and yummy vegetables being planted near the coffee plantation

No more Nasi Goreng (Indonesian Fried Rice) for me for a while

Back to the coffee. Below are photos of Coffee Luwak in its rarest form.

Coffee beans that has been cleaned up after passing through a Civet's digestion system. Doesn't look too clean does it? :S

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