Senin, 27 September 2010

Kopi Luwak An Indonesian Island Treasure

Some coffee varieties have earned a special reputation, often based on a combination of rarity, unusual circumstances and particularly good flavor. These coffees, from Jamaican Blue Mountain to Kona to Tanzanian Peaberry, command a premium price.
But the rarity, unique flavors and interesting background of Kopi Luwak are unlikely to be matched by an other. Its price is unmatched as well: Kopi Luwak wholesales for about $110 per pound, unroasted.
Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee. Kopi Luwak comes from the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi (formerly Celebes), which are part of the Indonesian Archipelago's 13,677 islands. (Only 6,000 of these islands are inhabited.)

But it's not strictly the exotic location that makes these beans worth their weight in silver. It's how they're "processed."

On these Indonesian islands, there's a small marsupial called the paradoxurus, a tree-dwelling animal that is a kind of civet. These catlike animals were long regarded as pests because they would climb in the coffee trees and eat only the ripest, reddest coffee cherries.

What these animals eat, they also digest and eventually excrete. Some brazen or desperate locals gathered the beans, which come through the digestion process fairly intact, still wrapped in layers of the coffee cherry mucilage. Apparently the enzymes in the stomach of the animal add something unique to the coffee's flavor through fermentation.

This "harvesting" practice has grown to the point that the beans are now available for sale, and they are now the world's priciest specialty coffee. Japan buys the bulk of Kopi Luwak, but M.P. Mountanos Inc., the first importer in the United States to bring in this rare bean, just imported 70 kilos after a seven-year search for a reliable and stable supplier.

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