Cat Crap Coffee

The first time i heard about Kopi Luwak coffee was from the movie Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. In the movie Nicholson’s character loves the coffee but mostly because its so expensive and rare. Freeman’s character then informs him that the coffee beans are produced from animal feces which of course turns in to a joke and Nicholson being stunned.

So it wasn’t until I came to Bali that I even knew where it was made. During our honeymoon Tami and I had the chance to go to a Kopi Luwak plantation and sample the coffee. It was different but good, maybe not worth the price, but the rarity certainly made it a treat. Tami liked it because it was the only black coffee she has ever had that didn’t need creamer or sweetner.

Well we went to another planation and here is a bit of a lesson.

This animal is called a civet. Most online forums call it a kind of cat…I would say it is more like a cat meats a raccoon. Regardless this animal provides all the magic. This animal only eats the coffee beans in the surrounding forests but it has a natural instinct to only eat the best of the berries/beans. The animal then ingests the beans and proceeds to crap them out (i know sort of shitty). The crap looks like this:

Sort of like corn on the cob. Gross. Anyway the “hunters” scour the jungles(or the plantations) looking for this valuable feces. It is then broken up in to beans and hand cleaned to take the skin off (and hopefully all the bacteria!).

The beans are then roasted and then grounded manually.

Once it is ground and it ready to go to make a great cup of cat crap coffee.

The coffee does have a lighter note so those that like dark roasts probably will not enjoy this coffee. I know in Seattle I would see some cafes selling a cup for somewhere around $50-75 USD. Here 250mg of the coffee grinds was $125. We had to buy some!

Outside of the Kopi Luwak there were a ton of other teas and coffees to enjoy, we did a sampler:

It was delicious but man did we have a buzz! Talk about mid day caffiene. They give you all this then send your jittering nerves in to the gift shop where you can’t NOT buy anything. I really liked the Bali coffee, the avocado coffee, and the lemongrass tea (one of my favorites). It was definitely a full afternoon of activity and drinking (coffee!).

Well folks those are the key Bali highlights, I hope you enjoyed. Tami and I love this place and would consider retiring here in the future. The weather is great, the people are nice, food is terrific, its very affordable, and life is just alot simpler. Adios until next time!