Thanks to my friend Jason White, who recently returned from a trip to Bali, a few lucky Scene staffers were treated to some kopi luwak — coffee made with beans that have been eaten and excreted by Asian palm civets, then harvested, cleaned and roasted. Something about the digestive process supposedly works miracles on the beans.
Yum! What's not to like?
Naturally, a few of us were a little squeamish about the whole concept, but we felt it was our civet doodie, er, civic duty to sample the coffee.
The upshot: Tasters were pretty unanimous in their praise for the coffee — bold and robust, but very smooth too, with virtually no acidic bite. The packaging materials included a description that mentioned hints of chocolate and caramel, which seems about right. And we were definitely wired to the gills before long. As one taster noted, the coffee produced a nice clean buzz, in the same way that high-end liquors do, compared to their cheaper counterparts.
It's worth noting that PETA and other animal rights groups claim that many kopi luwak beans are harvested from caged civets that are abused and force-fed. The packaging on the beans we used said they were harvested from the forest floor — but realistically, who can say for sure? Furthermore, I'm confident that everyone on our taste-testing team would tell you kopi luwak beans are not worth $120 for roughly half a pound. The price alone should keep your conscience clean.
Of course, as Steve Haruch posited, if a local, sustainable farm-to-cup civet bean movement were to take hold, all bets are off.
Excerpts from the lively, caffeine-fueled conversation follow. (Warning: If "civet doodie" had you rolling your eyes, there are far more egregious (and vulgar) puns ahead. Proceed at your own risk.)
Jim Ridley: Mmmm ... you can almost taste the sphincter.
Steve Cavendish: Love a good sphincter.
Ridley: Man, that's good stuff. I'll bet it will be even better with industrial-grade fake creamer.
Laura Hutson: So good.
Abby White: Jack, it's really good.
Ridley: Delicious.
Beans for our taste test, just before grinding and brewing
Hutson: Very smooth, not acidic at all.
Ridley: Very strong, but very smooth.
White: It's better than anything I've ever tasted out of anyone's ass. ... It's way better than what's in the kitchen right now.
Dana Kopp Franklin: So I learned that civets are from the larger cat family. Along with hyenas, mongooses.
Ridley: Mongeese? ... So is the headline "Silverman does anal" taken?
Steve Haruch: It's really hard to not think about the origin story of it. But if you just handed it to me, I would have said, "That's pretty good." I don't know enough about what the [civet's] digestive tract is supposed to do. I do notice that it doesn't have a lot of bite. It's nice and smooth. I don't know that it tasted so much different from another good cup of coffee. But what I like about it: Right now, a lot of the coffee shops are into these real floral coffees that I don't like, and this is not that.
But if you hadn't told me this was pooped out by a civet, I would not have thought, "Has this passed through an animal's asshole?" I don't think it would have crossed my mind. ...
If it was local civets, I might be willing to pay the premium.
Steven Hale: Smooth without the bite.
Haruch: Do you still have some of the sloth cum to put in there? I take sugar and sloth cum in mine. ... I feel like I could scale a tree.
D. Patrick Rodgers: It's significantly less bitter than most coffees. I've got a Starbucks medium blend, and [the kopi luwak] is somehow much less bitter. Smooth. Smooth like a civet's anus.
