Team Wet Dog -- Photography and Writing of Washington, D.C. artist Robert Walton

Team Wet Dog

kopi

I finally got around to trying something I've been looking forward to for some time — a coffee called kopi luwak, which has an unusual production method.

Essentially, the coffee is produced in Indonesia by harvesting partially digested beans from the excrement of the Palm Civet (a cat-like animal locally called a luwak, hence the name).

I'd read about it a few years back and had always been curious to try it, but held back for a few reasons. First, it's supposedly very rare and hence a little more expensive than your local French Roast (upwards of $100/pound). And because of the rarity, I suspect a lot of "fake" beans are floating around. Given the production and harvest method, the higher cost and the difficulty in telling what's "real," it makes sense to me that fake beans (or a mix) would be common.

I finally got around to trying it for a couple of reasons - first, I found a place that seemed legit. A roaster in Massachusetts was referenced on a couple of other web sites I saw as being a legitimate supplier, and so I decided to take a chance. The company, Armeno Coffee Roasters, sells the bean in quantities as small as 4 ounces, so it was affordable to try.

I'd heard varying stories about this coffee's taste -- ranging from hallucinogenic, to crap, to amazing. Depending on who you talk to, it's either one of the world's best coffees (perhaps owing to the partial-digestion process), or crap being sold at a high price to people curious about the way it's made.

My vote: it's simply average.

It's not a great coffee, and it's certainly not a bad coffee. It just falls into that broad range of "drinkable and unexceptional," except that — at least in theory — this bean was crapped out the ass of a cat.

But hey, I'm not complaining. It makes for a good story, if nothing else, and my curiosity has not been mostly satisfied. I'd still like to know more about it, and I can't help but wonder if the beans delivered to me really were authentic. But at least for now, it's one of those things I can scratch off my list of "things I want to try."

((8/1/06)
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