Cat-butt coffee: A critical review

Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world. At my local specialty coffee bean store, it sells for $420 per pound—or $10 for a 10 oz. brewed cup.

Kopi Luwak is very different from that cheap, gauche coffee you and I drink every day. This is because each hand-harvested bean of Kopi Luwak has been artisanally shat out of the digestive system of a small Indonesian pseudo-cat.

Yesterday, my husband and I split a cup of Kopi Luwak in an attempt to figure out whether having cat butt all over your coffee beans really did noticeably improve the flavor, or whether this was all just an elaborate practical joke on the part of Indonesian farmers.

The Asian Palm Civet is not really a cat, per se. It's a viverrid, a family of animals not found in North America. Viverrids belong to the same suborder as cats, so they are related. But, if you're not from Asian or African tropics, these animals will probably look a little weird to you. Imagine what might happen if the bastard love child of a ferret and a lemur had babies with your house cat. That's an Asian Palm Civet.

And Asian Palm Civets, as it turns out, really like to eat the fruits off of coffee plants. Although the civet can digest the fruit itself, the same can not be said for the bean at the center. Coffee beans pass through the civet whole. But they don't leave unchanged. Enzymes in the civet digestive tract break down proteins in the coffee beans. We know this because researchers at the University of Guelph actually did a detailed analysis in 2002, comparing Kopi Luwak and normal Columbian coffee beans. (You will be pleased to note that the same study confirmed that Kopi Luwak is safe to drink.)

Civets poop out coffee beans. This can happen on farms, or in the wild. Either way, once the pooping is done, somebody comes along to harvest the "processed" beans, cleans them, and roasts them. And then you have Kopi Luwak.

Here are the two things you need to know about the taste of Kopi Luwak:

• There is a difference in flavor. Kopi Luwak is noticeably not bitter. Swallow a sip, and it's like you just drank some water. There's no sting or heavy flavor left in the back of your throat. That makes sense. Proteins are part of what is responsible for the bitterness of coffee. Kopi Luwak beans have fewer whole proteins than normal beans. So they're less bitter, but still taste good. As my husband put it, "Everything that is wrong with cheap gas station coffee is right about this."

• That difference is totally not worth the price. Again, to quote my husband, "If I were a Russian oligarch or an investment banker or something, and $420 a pound represented a much smaller amount of my time worked, I'd probably drink this. As it is, not worth it."*

Cat-butt coffee: The coffee of the 1%?

Interestingly, Wikipedia tells me that Kopi Luwak originated during Dutch colonization of Indonesia, when Indonesians were banned from drinking any of the coffee they worked to grow and harvest. Instead, they gathered beans from civet poop and brewed that. And they talked about how great this cat-butt coffee was. Eventually, the Dutch colonists got curious, tried it for themselves, and then pretty much took it over. That's how Kopi Luwak became a luxury item. It's been expensive since the 19th century.

Of course, that history also lends a little more evidence to the theory that, somewhere, Indonesian farmers are having a good, long chuckle.

• • • •

Read more about Kopi Luwak in a 2010 New York Times story.

If you'd like a smoother brew at a more reasonable price, I'd recommend the Aerobie AeroPress. It's $30, makes a damn fine cup of coffee, and does not contain any cat butt.

Image: Kopi Luwak, Kaffee, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from ohallmann's photostream

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

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Phoc Yu

Calling it “cat-butt coffee” is like calling my breakfast items “chicken-cloaca eggs” served alongside “cow-mammary milk”
- nixiebunny
  
  Not quite. All eggs and milk are dispensed that way, but only cat-butt coffee beans come out of a cat butt.
  - awjt
    
    Does it have to be a cat?
- retepslluerb
  
  And don’t forget bee-vomit.
  
  Also, Viverridae aren’t cats.
  - http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
    
    Please see the 4th paragraph.
    - retepslluerb
      
      Yeah, I just looked to edit my comment accordingly.
      
      Serves me right for reading the comments before the article.
      
      Small tidbit: In Geman the animals called “Schleichkatze”, which, I guess, translates best as “tipttoing/sneaking cat”.
      - Rks1157
        
        How can you help not wanting to skip straight to the comments for this article?!
  - GlenBlank
    
    Depends on how you define ‘cat’. Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged defines cat, n., as, among other things:
    
    1c : an animal that in appearance or behavior resembles any member of the family Felidae — usually used with a qualifying term <bearcat> <toddy cat> <polecat> <native cat>
    
    And note that one of the names mentioned, ‘toddy cat’, is, in fact, a common name for the Asian Palm Civet.
    
    So it’s a cat. Not in the ‘member of the family Felidae’ sense of the word, but in the ‘animal that resembles a felid’ sense.
    - retepslluerb
      
      Sure. And whales and sea stars are fish, too. :-)
      - GlenBlank
        
        [LanguageGeek]
        Interestingly (well, to me, anyway), M-WU doesn’t include a definition of ‘fish’ that would extend to whales or sea stars.
        
        The OED says that “popular language” sometimes uses such an extended sense (“…extended to include various cetaceans, crustaceans, molluscs, etc.”), but notes that “popular usage now tends to approximate” the modern scientific sense, and adds a usage note that “Except in the compound shell-fish, the word is no longer commonly applied in educated use to invertebrate animals.”
        
        Dictionaries only record how skilled native speakers use the language, of course, but the differences between the entries for ‘cat’ and ‘fish’ suggest that ‘cat’ is commonly used in an extended sense that ‘fish’ is not.
        
        At least not in “educated use.” :-)
        [/LanguageGeek]
    - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
      
      Pfff. Merriam-Webster.
      - GlenBlank
        
        Oh, pfff yourself. Nothing wrong with M-WU, and when I posted I happened to be on a different computer that didn’t have OED access.
        
        The OED says pretty much the same thing (cat, n.1, def. 4a) and gives “civet cat” as an example.
        
        Is that good enough, or will you sneer at any source that doesn’t support your prejudices?
    - Dewi Morgan
      
      Are m-w redefining “markup” as “mess up”, now?
      - GlenBlank
        
        Um, what? Is there something wrong with the markup?
        
        (It was a PITA to preserve the angle brackets without confusing Disqus, but it looks fine from here.)
Jeb Adams

“Artisanally shat” is a keeper. It’s going to be tough to find places to drop that into conversation though. Anyone want to talk ab out ambergris with me?
- awjt
  
  I did that once, myself, on an ex’s doorstep. It was pure art, I tell ya.
Benjamin Slade

It’s really pseudo-cat-butt coffee.
- mudpup
  
  To be cat butt coffee it would have to be brewed in a cats butt. You seem to be writing about cat butt bean coffee. Say it out loud, and you will be singing it all day.
  
  Cat butt bean coffee.
  Cat butt bean coffee.
  Cat butt bean coffee.
  Cat butt bean coffee
  - Godfree
    
    To the tune of “Jingle Bells.”
    
    Oh what fun it is to drink, Cat but bean coffee–ee!
Lagged2Death

If you like less-”stingy” and milder, smoother coffee, cold brewing is worth investigating. I don’t know how the flavor compares to Kopi Luwak, but it’s a darn sight cheaper.
wheezer

Interestingly enough, a scientific study was undertaken on Kopi Luwak by Massimo Marcone, and documented in his book, which boingboing wrote about way back in 2007: http://boingboing.net/2007/07/13/expensive-coffee-fro.html .

The scientific evidence actually proves that there is a difference in taste, because the beans are processed in being digested: the outermost layers of dirt and bacteria are effectively removed by the digestive juices of the civet.
- http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Please see the 5th paragraph.
  - flosofl
    
    Maggie, Maggie, Maggie…
    
    If we read your article, how could we ever post high enough in the comment chain for people to notice?
    - awjt
      
      hahah, I’m a perp too. Sorry Maggie, we just want attention because you’re so great. It’s true! No facetious!
    - Melinda9
      
      Well, the new comment format permits people to reply to the first comment or the first reply to the first comment or the second reply to the first comment, etc, etc and thus get on top.
- http://twitter.com/spaceyslater spacey slater
  
  I mean — you could just taste it. My girlfriend brought back a few bags of civet coffee from Vietnam (that’s the cheap way to get it, FYI) and it tastes incredible. No comparison between it and other forms of coffee — it’s different and great.
  - wheezer
    
    It tasted better to me too, but psychosomatics are a bitch.
  - http://twitter.com/deckard26354 Antony Davies
    
    Agreed, it’s got a more chocolate aroma than Kopi Luwak. Personally do not drink it any more.
    Working in an Indonesian office for 2 year’s and consuming 3 cups of Kopi Luwak a day, killed my addiction to coffee.
  - gavinzac
    
    The stuff from Viet Nam is usually farm produced – the civets are kept in awful conditions. Please don’t buy, well, *anything* in Viet Nam.
    - Brooks Ballard
      
      and most of the time it is chemically treated rather than real cat butt coffee
- voiceinthedistance
  
  Outermost layers of dirt and bacteria? Are you familiar with how coffee is grown, harvested and processed? Perhaps you mean that natural coffee bacteria is replaced by pseudo-cat butt bacteria?
strangefriend

Cat Butt Coffee: striking a blow against empire since the 1800s.
Nylund

How much of a feat would it be to make or synthesize some of these enzymes and soak some beans in a vat rather than either raising or following around some wild psuedo-cats so you can individually pick out beans from their poop?
- http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Why do I imagine this effort would lead to some kind of incredibly bad for you street drug? ;)
  - zebbart
    
    Bathtub Kopi Luwak can make you go blind.
    - http://twitter.com/Listener43 Listener43
      
      I’m just going to drink it until I need glasses.
- Jedobe LLC
  
  No need to follow the critters. They tend to have favorite places to cop a squat and will to the midden heap over and over. So a crafty harvester just has to find where those spots are and make his (or her) weekly rounds with a pooper scooper.
  - http://twitter.com/zombiebombie3 zombiebombie3
    
    Crafty harvester? The doco i saw on them last some dude had a bunch of those cats in cages. I mean it wasnt quite a ‘battery-hen’ setup but it wasnt far off it..
- gavinzac
  
  There are factory farm setups. Wild Kopi Lewak is very rare now.
PhosPhorious

$420 a pound!?!

My cat will shit out coffee beans for half that. Plus, he’s a REAL cat, which I can only assume will improve the taste.
- retepslluerb
  
  Hmmm…. But how do you get the beans inside the cat?
  
  As a cat owner I find that http://volker.dnsalias.net/Jokes/txt/cat-pill is nearly accurate.
  - PhosPhorious
    
    Well, obviously, he’d get a cut. 10% ought to do it, he’s not proud.
  - rabidpotatochip
    
    One of my cats would eat a rock if you put gravy on it. He either thinks he’s a dog or some kind of lizard.
- Rks1157
  
  I don’t know anything about civets but my cat buries her “artisanal efforts”. I assume yours does too. That said, you’ll need to adjust your cost of production costs to cover mining expenses.
  - PhosPhorious
    
    Not a problem. They have robotic litter boxes. A small initial investment, and then it’s all profit!
- http://twitter.com/doggo doggo
  
  Yes, yes. Of course you could get half of that. Your cat is probably just a common house cat. Whereas my two cats are of the royal Puptaruptapimpnaporn line, descendants of residents of the royal palace of Siam. Why, we don’t even need to include coffee beans to get $420 a pound for their butt leavings. But if we did include coffee beans…!
  
  Furthermore I suggest we investigate the product produced from goats feeding on coffee fruit. Isn’t the legend that “dancing goats”, goats that had et’ them some coffee fruit and where in the throes of a killer caffeine buzz, alerted nearby goatherds to the magical properties of the coffee bean?
  
  I believe goats could certainly increase production and lower the price of digested coffee beans.
  - eyebeam
    
    I’m pretty sure that goats would masticate the beans, making them useless for brewing.
    - PhosPhorious
      
      C’mon! Being shit out by a cat is bad enough, who wants to drink coffee from beans that goat has. . .
      
      Oh, wait. You said “masticate.” Never mind. . .
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  My cat will shit out coffee beans for half that. Plus, he’s a REAL cat, which I can only assume will improve the taste.
  
  Not one crack about a toxoplasma macchiato? How disappointing.
  - bmcraec
    
    I expect that would be a skinny mocha toxoplasmic Machiatto, easy on the foam.
inchworm

I have been lucky enough to have this coffee twice: once in a cafe in Saigon and then on a coffee and spice plantation on Bali. Both times, the coffee was smooth, delicious and followed by smooth waves of caffeinated euphoria.
In Bali, my wife and I got to feed pieces of banana to a couple of civets. Then we sat, ate raw cacao seed and drank civet coffee. All for a few dollars : )
- Jeb Adams
  
  How’d did you get to Bali for a few dollars? Tickets are really expensive no matter where I look.
Wingnut

Has anybody tried processing coffee beans in a solution of artificial digestive enzymes and hydrochloric acid to mimic the civet’s stomach action?
I bet Breaking Bad’s Walter White could do it!
- YanquiFrank
  
  I think that’s more of a job for Gale actually. Oh yeah, he’s dead.
- gavinzac
  
  The developing world has found it easier to simply put the civets in cages and force feed them the beans.
- privatedick
  
  Artificially processed civet coffee is fairly easy to buy, and it’s been judged to be comparable. I did a search for it just a few weeks back and could buy it for $17/lb. Google it yourself, lazybones.
http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan

I’m still trying to train my cat to operate a french press. I suppose I could wrap coffee beans in a thin layer of meat and use those as the reward when he completes part of the task successfully…
flowergardenslayer

Thanks for trying this for the rest of us. I always wondered about this. I agree with your husband, totally not worth it, but still good to know there is a noticable, and nice improvement in flavor. I think I’ll stick to my cold brewing.
noot

“Artisanally shat out” is my new favorite phrase and will henceforth be applied to anything coming out of my bosses mouth.
- stephenlondon
  
  I too would like to give a shout out to the catchphrase of the day, “artisanally shat out.” I suspect, however, noot is in danger of conflating his boss’ orifices.
http://twitter.com/SproBeforeBros Jackson—SWAG—OBrien

Those of us in the specialty coffee industry have a nickname for kopi luwak: Coffee From Assholes For Assholes.

A pound of Panamanian Esmerelda Geisha will run you only $70 and tastes a LOT better.
- sdmikev
  
  I hope you see the irony in your comment.
- David Germanico
  
  But, is it pooped out from authentic panamenian geishas?
  - AGirlNamedMichael
    
    Only if they are named Esmerelda
http://twitter.com/Elissa_Malcohn Elissa Malcohn

John Martinez of J. Martinez & Co. in Atlanta received the 1995 Ig Nobel Prize in Nutrition for Luak Coffee. (I was lucky enough to be at that ceremony.)
http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/
http://twitter.com/Apreche Apreche

Why don’t they produce the enzymes from the psueduo cat’s gut, and treat the beans with them? Then you can manufacture a much higher volume of this stuff since actual animals won’t be involved.
- sarah shevett
  
  Unless one puts milk in their coffee..
- stephenlondon
  
  I too would like to give a shout out to the catchphrase of the day, “artisanally shat out.” I suspect, however, noot is in danger of conflating his boss’ orifices.
  - stephenlondon
    
    In order to have access to a sufficient supply of pseudo cat gut to make the enterprise viable, one will have to invest in the tennis racket…
paul pauline

Wow, this Kopi Luwak sounds like a real catastrophe (read: cat-ass-trophy).
ROSSINDETROIT

Not all cat ass coffees are equal. Some are collected from the wild and some come from production facilities where captive civets are force fed the coffee fruits and become obese. I think I read that here back last century. In any case, at a market price of $1K/kilo for poop someone would have to try and mechanize production.
Sean Grady

I welcome feedback on this supposition: I thought part of the greatness of this coffee was from how the animal selects just the ripest beans for its meal. You could get an equivalent cup quality by paying the pickers to just get the ripest cherries. Aren’t the enzymes destroyed and outer layers (chaff) removed in the roasting process?
paul pauline

When my brother first heard about this crazy-expensive cat butt bean coffee he said “Hell, I can do that!” He fed a couple handfuls of espresso beans to his Maine Coon Rufus and brewed a pot with what came out the other end. Not bad at all.
- mudpup
  
  Anyone who can convince a Maine Coon to answer to the name Rufus, deserves a fine cup of coffee.
Sean Grady

‘supposition’ – my mind was reaching for a pun but didn’t quite get there.
http://twitter.com/MichaelRpdx Michael Rasmussen

Another variant on “let the critters select the beans for ripeness” is Jacu Bird coffee from Brazil.
For a full description search for Jacu at http://www.sweetmarias.com/coffee.archive.new.php?country=Brazil
ROSSINDETROIT

Man, those must be some seriously wired civets. Imagine if a large portion of the food in your intestines was coffee beans. I’d be climbing the walls. Do they have a 12 step program for them when they try to kick the stuff?
- eyebeam
  
  Don’t crush the bean, don’t get caffeine.
  - cdh1971
    
    Coffee berries, in addition to sugar, also have caffeine. There is a wine made from these that has alcohol and caffeine.
  - stephenlondon
    
    One wonders if a jacked-up celebrity civet defense attorney has ever tried this catchy slogan of yours in a court of law.
Finnagain

And the ads write themselves. “There’s a butt in every cup!”
Guest

“Good to the last . . .”

I was going to say “sphincter” but I’m sure the collective wit of the Happy Mutants can do better.
- chgoliz
  
  Good to the last plop.
  - PhosPhorious
    
    You win the thread.
http://twitter.com/someknob Stefan Wrenshall

Okay, as an experiment I just force fed Mr.Fluffer a handful of beans and cleaned his litter box. I will report tomorrow or the next day….
- cdh1971
  
  Umm…your cat’s a fluffer of what?
Romeo Vitelli

Nothing new really. Traditionally, argan oil was extracted from the droppings of goats that climbed argan trees to eat argan fruit (yes, goats can climb trees. I saw it myself when visited Morocco).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argan_oil
- retepslluerb
  
  Well: http://mudfooted.com/goats-climbing-vertical-dam/
http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino

Nevermind “artisanally shat out”. I’m setting out to find many excuses to say “gauche coffee”.
http://twitter.com/daveroos David Roos

Does it have to be a Civet gut? Cuz coffee berries are pretty tasty. Just sayin’…
stuck411

Anyone here heard the term “second harvest”? No, not the nonprofit that gathers food missed by mechanized harvesting in the fields to give to food banks. I’m talking about the Native American tribes that would plant the seed they’d find undigested in their poo. Other cultures would do it too. Since learning about it, it makes it difficult to eat corn without chuckling a little. If offered a bag of this coffee I’d probably explode from laughter.
pjk

* Colombian. Not Columbian.

Sorry for being annoying, I’m overly caught up in a struggle with my voice recognition software over this one.
atimoshenko

This post made my day.
oldtaku

‘Indonesians were banned from drinking any of the coffee they worked to grow and harvest. Instead, they gathered beans from civet poop and brewed that. And they talked about how great this cat-butt coffee was. Eventually, the Dutch colonists got curious, tried it for themselves, and then pretty much took it over.’

It’s Tom Sawyer coffee!
donovan acree

One thing to note: civits only eat the ripest and best berries.
http://twitter.com/wildbell Will Campbell

“psuedo-cat.” Hmph. Civets get no respect, but at least they get the last laugh at anyone who readily and knowlingly pays such ridiculous amounts of money to drink their poo.
ROSSINDETROIT

One question: is this Vegan? I know honey isn’t.
- retepslluerb
  
  Only when gathered from the wild. Otherwise it’s slav a labor and therefore not peta.
  - ROSSINDETROIT
    
    Thanks. That makes perfect sense.
Grey Devil

There is also an indonesian monsoon coffee that a coffee shop i used to work at had. I forget some details but basically its specifically set out to dry during monsoon season, (and crudely explaining this) it somehow affects the bitterness of the beans. The brew ends up being mild and has a low acidic content. Awesome coffee for people who have problems with the bitterness or the impact of the acidity on their stomach.
- http://twitter.com/Elissa_Malcohn Elissa Malcohn
  
  I think you mean Malabar coffee. (I’ve had it as Indian Malabar.) People tend to love it or hate it. I’m in the “love it” camp.
Brainspore

Every time I hear about this product I think about the “labrador” blend enjoyed by Cheech & Chong in Up in Smoke. Different recreational drug, same concept.
ROSSINDETROIT

My turn. ”I’ll have a skinny half-caff cat ass. To go.”
(rimshot)
- Jonathan Roberts
  
  You’d pay that much for someone to make you a cup of half-ass coffee?
http://profiles.google.com/commanderkitty Scotty A

Slow unusual news day?
I think every year since the internet was invented, this article, or one like it has circulated to the shock and amazement of fewer and fewer readers.
It’s about time that kopi luwak coffee passed from the unusual to the ordinary.
Heh heh… passed.
- Brainspore
  
  This isn’t “news,” it’s a review of a product that most people have never tasted as written by a woman who recently tried it for the first time.
SamSam

So I’ve had this twice. Once from a comercial-looking bag like the one above, and one high in the mountains in Bali, surrounded by a spice plantation and civets.

The first was delicious, as the article describes. Even made with our Italian Bialetti Moka pot, which would make most purists turn up their noses because it supposedly burns the coffee, the difference was amazing.

The second time, though. Ah, the second time. In a spice plantation surrounded by cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, vanilla. Civets running around their cages. Fresh poop drying in the sun. The coffee was ritually roasted over a fire and ground by hand. The brew was made by pouring freshly-boiled water into a wooden cup.

And it was flat-out gross.

Yes. If you take your $450-a-pound coffee, burn it to a crisp over an open fire, grind it with a mortar and pestle, and dump it in boiling water, yes, it will taste just as bad as gas station coffee.
http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael

The term I’ve heard is “cat-poop coffee”, as in “I’m not drinking that cat-poop coffee beer”, when a co-worker referenced my bottle of Mikeller Beer Geek Brunch Imperial Oatmeal Stout, a wholly excellent beer that is made with Kopi Luwak.

I spent $18 on a 21oz bottle, as I doubted I’d ever taste the coffee (and, yeah, $10 for a pure cup would have been cheaper, but I’m more of a beer experimentalist than a coffee experimentalist). It was an excellent beer, but I’m sure you make a just-as-excellent-beer with a cheaper coffee.
E T

“Cat-butt coffee” that just makes it sound like its been near a cat butt. It should be called “cat shit coffee”.
rhinokitty

This coffee is produced at great expense to the civet. No one scours the jungle in search of the “gems” these cats leave behind. They are raised on farms where they are kept in squalid, third-world wire cages and fed minimal nutritious food so that they can be force fed more beans.

It is a delicacy that should be avoided.
- ROSSINDETROIT
  
  I’ve seen pics of extremely obese civets that were fed huge amounts of coffee fruits to ‘process’ the beans. It’s ghastly but at the market price I’m not surprised someone’s doing it.
- stephenlondon
  
  Erm, how do third world wire cages differ from the garden variety first world selection? Just wondering.
ahtoagah

When I was traveling with my wife in Sumatra a few years back we were able to find a little village near Bukittinggi which had a woman who sold kopi luwak, and of course we bought some beans. She roasted the batch for us right there, but unfortunately she roasted it too much. Still, when we brewed up some when we got home we found it was pretty good. Not ambrosia, but very good coffee, indeed.

It was strictly a small village, even family operation. I suspect the combination of the need for manual collection and the small supply explains much of the cost.

Of course, it’s safe. I mean, the beans are washed first, and then roasted like hell. And that’s before boiling water is poured over them to make the final brew. I doubt any nasties could survive that trip.However, I have to also say that Sumatran coffee in general is so extraordinarily good in the first place (good luck finding it any at Starbucks) that it’s difficult to sort out what would be added by the luwak.Btw, for those who are thinking of buying some, caveat emptor. They sell a version of kopi luwak in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (called chon coffee) which is, in fact, a blend of regular and “real” luwak coffee (although I sort of recall that other animals might also be involved). The price is cheaper than we found in Sumatra, but it’s not 100% the real thing. (They don’t tell you it’s not 100%, though.)
beth cravens

This post brought out my inner 9 year old.
http://www.soulrecycler.com/ Patter Light Grey

http://catbuttcoffee.com/
Ian Dahlberg

Would love to read a review on Barking Deer Shit coffee next.
http://www.mrericsir.com MrEricSir

I’ve tried it, although what I had may have been the fake (i.e. cheap) version. Was not something I’d drink again.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Clarence-Rutherford/1379274479 Clarence Rutherford

Not sure how many of you were around when “Jamaican Blue Mountain” was the raved about brew & ridiculously expensive. Soon it was almost impossible to not run into ‘JBM’ in every coffee shop and A&P in America. It was so common in fact that it became obvious that none of it was actually Jamaican Blue Mountain that people were paying extra for. How long before ‘cat-poop coffee’ is being sold by the gallon in every Starbucks?
- Brainspore
  
  Hey, just as long as it has a “BM” in it.
- penguinchris
  
  A more pedestrian (non-coffee-geek) example is Kona. Mostly it’s sold as a blend with other, cheaper coffees.
MauiJerry

I’d rather have the coffee fruit processed by some local (maui) workers and turned into KonaRed http://www.konared.com/ Its not actually made from the bean in the center, so you get both great drinks…. and no cat sht
- http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  You may want to clarify your post. In the context of this story, “processed by some local (maui) workers” takes on a whole new meaning. I assume KonaRed is not made from the poop of Hawaiians, right?
  - PhosPhorious
    
    You assume at your own risk.
  - MauiJerry
    
    ummm, yeah right. it is NOT made from Hawaiian poop. It is made from hawaiian coffee fruit, brewed not far from our makerspace… not far by maui standards, where 20 miles is a long drive.
    - Ipo
      
      But you do realize that Greenwell Farms is in Kealakekua, kona side of an entirely different island, 80 miles south from Makena?
      - MauiJerry
        
        As I understand it, Kona Red is made from awesome Kona coffee grown on Big Isle. The berries (or maybe w/o bean) are shipped to Maui and Kona Red is made in a greenhouse off Omaopio Rd Maui. The Community Work Day (Maui) seedling greenhouse is on the same property.
Ian Dahlberg

I’m surprised no one’s mentioned making crappuccino.
- PhosPhorious
  
  You also win the thread.
- JohnBerry
  
  Doh! I was just going to call it poopachino.
- DewiMorgan
  
  It’s probably bad when it comes out frothy.
  - bmcraec
    
    Something something Santorum?
hostile_17

While understandably not very cheap, it still is $10. To split a cup and say it’s for a “Russian oligarch or an investment banker” I think may be slightly overplaying it!
scifijazznik

And you have to brew it while grooving to Journey to the Center of Cat Butt by Cat Butt. 1989, Sub Pop Records. Get it while it’s hot.
YanquiFrank

Alas, the closest I’ve come to cat butt coffee, is monkey-picked tea. But with all the shit flinging, nose picking and masturbating those monkeys must be doing I figure its gotta be close.
http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/P5EPU63CBKYTPIGZLHI2REJRGA Richard

that plastic toy you are hacking (aero press) is not a good coffee maker
- JohnBerry
  
  Could you expand? Have you tried it?
  - JohnBerry
    
    The reviews at Amazon are pushing me toward a “buy” decision. Some negatives but mostly positives.
- http://sharp.clavid.com/ Sharp
  
  It’s a great coffee maker. Just throw away original instructions and use instructions from brewmethods.com.
- siloxane
  
  that plastic toy you are hacking (aero press) is not a good coffee maker
  
  I have read other reviews from people who disagree with you.
- Brad Pottinger
  
  Both my lady and I have barista experience, and use it daily (multiple times usually.) I would agree with you if you were talking about not good coffee to begin with. Buy an espresso bean, espresso grind it and then add water to suit your taste. Mine is 2 oz espresso, 2 oz water, 1 oz cream. Awesome.
jtmon

For something cheaper yet very mild try 100% Kona. Amazon has it and if you get a bad bag the grower replaces it for free. Best coffee I’ve ever had .
Guest

I’m guessing they don’t make Keurig K-cups with this coffee, then?
Guest

Can I do the same thing by feeding dogs coffee cherries, like maybe Chihuahuas?
AncientScot

It’s a civet. Can you say, “SARS?”
Maybe later we can all have civet pate foie gras for that extra little caffiene jolt.
lewis_stoole

i process my own coffee beans. it is smooth.
Jeffrey Cobia

Strangely, I was at Coffee & Tea LTD yesterday (I assume that’s where you go for your coffee) in Linden Hills – I much prefer the Galapagos Bourbon coffee – another interesting historic bean (from the Bourbon tree, the only relation to the alcohol is the family they’re both named after). Also, I once had a “second cup” so to speak after another customer ordered the kopi coffee before I came into the store, and it was still delicious.
John Delaney

For what its worth:
http://www.trung-nguyen-online.com/
Trung-nguyen has developed an enzymatic industrial process to get the Kopi flavor. Hell I love vietnamese coffee in general and if you get a cup (with sweetened condensed milk) in a restaurant its most likely to be Trung-Nguyen. Its great coffee, even the non-enzyme stuff.
Brock Blatter

I always thought the civet was more of a weasel. We’ve been calling it weasel-poop coffee.
http://www.oeilgauche.com/ Ludovic Pessot

I’ll side with the Indonesian farmers on this one, thank you very much. I only drink tea anyway…
Halloween_Jack

In other news, all vegetables are grown in worm shit.
http://twitter.com/lisadubbels Lisa @ Catalyst Pub

What I want to know is where in the Twin Cities you found this, Maggie.
- http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Coffee and Tea Ltd. in Linden Hills, near Lake Harriet.
http://babyzoink.com Gregory Bloom

Do you s’pose the interested home-brewer can coerce a domestic feline to swallow a bunch of green coffee, then roast their own after kitty is done “processing”?

Also, if one instead employed a binturong, would the resulting beans take on their distinctive buttered-popcorn aroma?
pauljodi

I was told in Jamaica that the best coffee was made from beans confiscated from the secret storage caches of rats. The rats selectively take only the perfectly ripe red beans (because they taste the best) and ignore the partly green ones that are usually included in the harvests gathered by human pickers. These rat caches aren’t digested and pooped, just beans at their prime ripeness. Maybe the good taste of the Civet crap beans have nothing to do with passing through the animal but rather are the top quality beans to start.
myob1776

Danish brewer Mikkeller makes an amazing Oatmeal Stout brewed with cat-butt coffee; it’s called “Beer Geek Brunch (Weasel).”

http://www.mikkeller.dk/index.php?beer_id=78&id=61&land=1
urbanspaceman

Sounds like really good shit!
Damien

I tried to train my sister’s pet cat to produce cat-butt coffee.
Didn’t improve the flavour of the coffee, no matter how much I force-fed the poor animal.
Looking on the bright side, there is no apparent difference between the normal behaviour of this cat, and caffeine-OD-induced psychosis.
macpearce

Hi, I’m Mac, and I’m gonna be the grumpy guy on the comments section.
I’ve got to start with this. Please don’t associate Kopi with specialty coffee. I work in the specialty industry and by no means is cat-shit considered a fine beverage. I’ve tried it, it tastes like cat-ass. The method by which the coffee is produced is inhumane to civets, who are caged in the same fashion you see those PETA ad chickens. WITHIN the specialty coffee industry, theres this great blog, a blog that blogs about the really great stuff, the great coffee and the great processing methods that go along with the coffee. Civet doo doo is never included as an acceptable or successful processing method. I’ve attached the link to “Sprudge”, that blog that the specialty industry goes to, below. PLEASE! I beg of you! Don’t tell your readers to drink it. It’s awful! A far better coffee can be found from a local roaster. Someone who, preferably, has not shit their beans.
I love your site. Thanks BoingBoing.
http://sprudge.com/say-no-to-kopi-luwak.html
RJ

It’s probably a real hit with the scat fetishists.
guitarchitect

a heads up to the people asking about a synthetic process, there is one – developed at the University of Florida, licensed by Coffee Primero. It’s their “Magic Cat” line of beans. I haven’t tried it myself but BB should update/follow-up this article with a taste-test and comparison!

http://www.coffeeprimero.com/category/53-single-order.aspx