Civet coffee: The real chemistry behind this bizarre luxury drink

Coffee beans collected from civet feces have a unique chemical composition that may explain why such beans are prized for their flavor.

Asian palm civets (Paradoxurus hermaphrodite) are mongoose-like animals native to South and Southeast Asia. Civet coffee, also known as Kopi Luwak, is one of the most valuable and unusual luxury drinks in the world. A kilogram of beans passing through a civet cat's digestive tract can cost more than $1,000.

Kopi Luwak is produced primarily in Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, but is also produced on a smaller scale in other countries, including India and East Timor. However, animal welfare groups are urging consumers to avoid the industry. accusing him of keeping thousands of civets in cages in deplorable conditions..

To find out how coffee beans transform after passing through a civet cat, Allesh Sinu is back from the Central University of Kerala, India, and his colleagues collected coffee samples from five coffee farms near Kodagu in the Western Ghats mountain range in India.

The civets live in the wild on these farms, and none of the farms house the animals in cages. Workers regularly collect beans from the droppings and then add them to the crop of coffee beans grown on the trees. “In the places where we have worked, planters and civets interact harmoniously,” says Sinu. “We want to educate planters about the facts about chemistry.”

The researchers collected about 70 civet pellets containing coffee beans, and also hand-picked beans from Robusta coffee trees on the plantations, before conducting a series of tests that looked at key chemical components such as fats and caffeine.

The total amount of fat was significantly higher in civet beans than in tree-harvested beans, while caffeine, protein, and acid contents were slightly lower. The lower acidity was likely due to fermentation during digestion, the researchers said.

The volatile organic compounds in civet are also quite different from regular coffee beans. Some of these components that are commonly found in regular coffee beans are either completely absent from civet beans or present only in minimal quantities.

The team suggests that the higher fat content of civet coffee may contribute to its unique aroma and flavor profile, while the lower levels of proteins may result in reduced bitterness.

Sinu says keeping civets in cages to make kopi luwak is cruel, and he hopes further work will help develop artificial fermentation processes that produce coffee with identical chemical composition.

“We hypothesize that the gut microbiome may somehow help with the fermentation process,” says Sinu. “Once we know the enzymes involved in digestion and fermentation, we will be able to artificially produce civet coffee.”