Posted on Thursday, 2nd July 2009 by All Philippines
Everybody loves a freshly-brewed cup of coffee to perk you up on a lazy morning. It is one of life’s simple pleasures. But will you still feel the same when you found out that the freshly-brewed cup of coffee of yours, you just downed till the last drop, was made from coffee beans that were once part of an icky excrement of a wild Philippine jungle cat?
Yes, this is not just an urban legend or some kind of strange voodoo potion you need to drink to get out of the forest alive. The cat poo coffee is real and it is considered the most expensive coffee in the world. It is actually known internationally as “Kopi Luwak”. These expensive coffee beans are collected and processed in the islands of Indonesia and some parts of South East Asia, including the Philippines.
The word “Kopi Luwak” is derived from two Indonesian words kopi (coffee) and luwak (asian palm civet). In the Philippines, there are actually two kinds of “kopi luwak” coffee beans, one is processed in the mountainous parts of northern Luzon (Cordillera Region) called Motit coffee, and the other, known as Kape Alamid, is farmed in the Tagalog regions.
Consuming this rare coffee is actually safe, according to some experts, because of all the process involved. A nocturnal animal, the Philippine civet (Paradoxorus Philippinensis) chooses only the ripest and sweetest coffee cherries it can gather in the forest and eats them till the coffee seasons over. The civets’ droppings, a mixture of coffee beans and the special civet enzymes, are then collected in the early morning to ensure freshness and will be washed, sun-dried, and roasted lightly to protect the distinct coffee flavor that is now imbued in the coffee beans. The civet is an animal that is not known as a carrier of E. coli and some experts are insisting that the civets’ enzymes produced in its digestive system helps eliminate those bacteria that might be harmful to humans.
A cup of this strange brew can cost you around 50 US dollars (2,400 Philippine Pesos) per cup. Now that’s what I call cat sh*t! 
Tags: cat poo coffee, cat poop coffee, cat shit coffee, Kape Alamid, Kopi Luwak, motit, Motit coffee, musang, Paradoxorus Philippinensis, Philippine civets, Philippine coffee, rare coffee, strange brew, world's most expensive coffee
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