8 Mar 2012 - Weasel Coffee

Today as I was on my way to get my morning coffee with a friend of mine, she was telling me about Weasel coffee, that can be found in Vietnam. I was intrigued and a little disgusted when she explained the concept. The basic process is that the coffee berries are fed to the weasel and as it passes through their digestive system, the coffee bean remains formed, to be passed out the other end. The beans are then processed and ground as usual. However the coffee produced from those beans is much less bitter than the original coffee would have been undigested. My friend later sent me a Wikipedia article explaining the process further. The Vietnamese produced coffee is known in English as Weasel coffee, however it is not in fact weasels that digest the beans, it is actually civets, mainly the Asian Palm Civet, but also other types are used. Kopi Luwak is the Indonesian name for the coffee, which is also called civet coffee. All types of this coffee are quite exclusive and prices can reach as much as 160 dollars per pound.

My first question was, who first decided to feed coffee to the civet? Was it because they were afraid that the animals were having trouble staying awake? My second question was, who then decided to eat the product that was defecated at a later date? Also was the coffee fed to the civet with the specific purpose of brewing a coffee at a later date? The more I thought about it, the more I thought the whole thing was disgusting! How did this form of coffee manage to become so popular and exclusive? It turns out that when the plantations were originally built, the locals who farmed the coffee were never allowed to taste the beans because they were worth so much money at export. So when they discovered that the civets in the wild would eat the berries on the coffee plants, and pass the beans out undigested, they decided this would be their only chance to try this new flavoured beverage. This method of collecting beans spread through the local population and was eventually heard about by the plantation owners who tried and liked the blend. This is how the Weasel coffee was born, and became a viable option to normal coffee.

Read the Wikipedia article for more information on Weasel/Civet coffee.