In Bali, coffee harvesters do not scour forest floors to look for prized civet coffee, locally known as kopi luwak. You won’t find free roaming civets pooping coffee beans. In fact, caged civets produce kopi luwak in Bali.
Businessmen have set up small farms with caged luwak (civets), coffee plants, roasting stations, tasting stations and shops for tourists. If you have been to Bali lately, you’ll know kopi luwak farms have become one of the main tourist attractions offered to travelers from around the world.
With the demand of kopi luwak has comes heated debates in recent years on two main topics – animal cruelty and what defines real kopi luwak. which is the real deal, the real kopi luwak.
When kopi luwak was first discovered it was from “droppings of a luwak, a nocturnal forest animal that freely prowls coffee plantations at night in the harvest season, eating the choicest ripe coffee cherries.” (Source: Civet coffee: Why it’s time to cut the crap)
These wild animals pooped out the undigested coffee beans with its droppings, which were collected by workers and made into kopi luwak.
While attending the tea and coffee expo in Shanghai in 2014, we met a few kopi luwak merchants and producers from Indonesia. Of those included the two owners of Kopi Luwak Nusantara in Jakarta Indonesia, Andy Nugroho and Tommi Toropainen. They have coffee farms in the Gayo Highlands in Aceh Sumatra.
Kopi Luwak Nusantara produces 100% genuine wild kopi luwak from wild civets. Read more on how they produce genuine kopi luwak on their website.
Kopi luwak farms in Bali are set up for tourists to try different types of coffee (some flavored) from Indonesia for free. The kopi luwak isn’t free though, costing 50,000 Rupiah (about $3.50) per cup. Joining one of these tours will let you see caged civets and give you an opportunity to sample Indonesian coffee and perhaps genuine kopi luwak.
Have you tried kopi luwak? Would you visit Gayo Highlands in Aceh Sumatra if we organized a tour to see how kopi luwak is produced naturally? Let us know.
