Kopi Luwak

Fans of the movie The Bucket List wuill remember Jack Nicholson's character wanting to try the world's most expensive coffee: Kopi Luwak (aka cat poop coffee). Kopi Luwak comes from Indonesia, and is the result of coffee collected from the excrements of the palm civet. In the wild, palm civets select the nicest, ripest coffee fruits to eat. During digestion the seeds of the coffee supposedly benefit from the shorter peptides and free amino acids, resulting in a coffee that had lower acidity and more body. Nevertheless, professional cuppers poo-pooh Kopi Luwak (pun intended). In strict cupping results, Kopi Luwak ranked lower than the undigested bean from which it was derived. Also, intense palm civet farming has reduced Kopi Luwak to the level of a novelty item. Mind you, a novelty item that sells for hundreds of dollars a pound.

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