Part of what makes kopi luwak so special, experts say, is that wild civets pick and choose the choicest coffee cherries to eat. Wild or Caged: Who Knows?Īll of this for a luxury item-and a second-rate one, at that. And they were exposed to daytime noise from traffic and tourists, which is particularly disturbing for these nocturnal animals. This adorable tropical mammal possesses a unique quality: Its poop is an ingredient in the world’s most expensive coffee.Īdditionally, many of the civets had no access to clean water and no opportunity to interact with other civets. “It’s a constant, intense source of pain and discomfort.” They have nowhere to go to get off that flooring,” D’Cruze said. “If you’re standing on that kind of wire mesh all the time, it’s going to cause sores and abrasions. And some were jacked up on caffeine, D’Cruze said.īut what he found most disturbing was the wire floor many of the animals were forced to stand, sit, and sleep on around the clock. Some were obese, from never being able to move around freely. Some of the civets were very thin, from being fed a restricted diet of only coffee cherries-the fruit that surrounds the coffee bean. They’re absolutely soaked through with urine and droppings all over the place,” said Neil D’Cruze, one of the researchers. “Some of these cages were literally the tiniest-we would call them rabbit hutches. The results, published Thursday in the journal Animal Welfare, paint a grim picture.įrom the size and sanitation of the cages to the ability of their occupants to act like normal civets, every plantation the researchers visited failed basic animal welfare requirements. Researchers from Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit and the London-based nonprofit World Animal Protection assessed the living conditions of nearly 50 wild civets held in cages at 16 plantations on Bali. In part, this is for coffee production, but it’s also so money can be made from civet-ogling tourists. Their digestive enzymes change the structure of proteins in the coffee beans, which removes some of the acidity to make a smoother cup of coffee.īut as civet coffee has gained popularity, and with Indonesia growing as a tourist destination where visitors want to see and interact with wildlife, more wild civets are being confined to cages on coffee plantations. In Indonesia, the Asian palm civet, which raids commercial fruit farms, is often seen as a pest, so the growth in the kopi luwak industry encouraged local people to protect civets for their valuable dung. It plays an important role in the food chain, eating insects and small reptiles in addition to fruits like coffee cherries and mangoes, and being eaten in turn by leopards, large snakes, and crocodiles.Īt first the civet coffee trade boded well for these creatures. A cup of kopi luwak, as it’s known, can sell for as much as $80 in the United States.įound in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the civet has a long tail like a monkey, face markings like a raccoon, and stripes or spots on its body. Or rather, it’s made from coffee beans that are partially digested and then pooped out by the civet, a catlike creature. It’s the world’s most expensive coffee, and it’s made from poop.
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