Start the day with a concoction made from cat poop. That doesn’t sound very attractive. But we are talking about kopi luwak, the most expensive type of coffee in the world made with coffee beans found in the feces of vegetarian civets. The passage through the cat’s intestine gives the coffee beans a unique aroma that is reflected in the taste of the coffee.
In an article in Scientific Reports to have Indian scientists extensively analyzed what is different about the chemical composition of the civet coffee bean and the simply picked coffee bean. They compared unroasted coffee beans, because roasting again produces many other chemical changes that affect the taste and smell.
The researchers collected the feces of civet cats from an organic coffee plantation in western India. Coffee berries turned out to be by far the cats’ favorite food, there were few other seeds in them. Each dropping contained 13 to 230 coffee beans. For each turd that researchers found, they also cut off a few branches with fresh coffee berries to have good comparison material.
A coffee bean roll from a civet cat.
Photo Ramit Mitra
Fresh civet coffee beans had a significantly higher fat percentage than the regular ones. In particular, they contain higher levels of the saturated fatty acids caprylic acid and capric acid, substances with a strong odor and taste reminiscent of goat’s milk. This is due to the action of gastric juice and digestive enzymes of the civet, where a slow fermentation occurs at just the right constant temperature. The average time between eating and defecating is twelve hours, the scientists report.
Civet coffee has become quite popular after it entered culinary circles and even a feature film was promoted. That has pushed the price up to 50 euros per hundred grams. As a result, it is often tampered with there is sometimes animal suffering because civets are kept in small cages and fed a diet of coffee berries. The Indian scientists emphasize that their research concerns free-living wild civets.
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