Coffee "Лювак" - the most expensive and ambiguous in the world of coffee

And are you ready to pay 30 or even 50 dollars for just one cup of coffee? That's the price of the most expensive coffee in the world - "Copy Luvak". Such a high price is due to the complexity and laboriousness of the production process of this variety. In a year receive no more than 270 kilograms of this elite coffee "Лювак". The cost of one kilogram of grains varies from 400 to 1500 dollars.

To drink this very cup of coffee "Luvak", you need to be a person not only rich, but also ungainly, because the process of processing the grains is quite peculiar.

Coffee trees for this type of coffee grow on farms located on some islands of Indonesia - Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi. In addition to the trees on these farms contain small animals with sad eyes, similar to cats - musangs, or palm civets. In the local Indonesian dialect, they are called "luvaks", and "copy" is coffee. From these two words a name has taken place.

Musangs eat ripe fruits of coffee trees - coffee cherries. In the digestive tract of the animal, the pulp that surrounds the coffee beans is digested, and the beans themselves are saturated with enzymes and come out unchanged. Farm workers collect animal excrement, dry, separate precious fruits, thoroughly wash them, again dry them in the sun, and then lightly fry to not damage the original flavor. Until the moment when people realized that the processed grains of coffee beans could be used to make a drink, they considered these carnivorous animals to be pests.

In the gastric juice of musangs is cibetin, which gives the coffee "Luvak" a special vivid taste. Lovers and connoisseurs of coffee - these coffee lovers - say that the taste of coffee "Luvak" balanced, with a light bitter taste, hints of chocolate, nougat, honey and butter. The drink leaves a lasting and pleasant aftertaste. By the way, at home, a cup of coffee "Kopi Luvak" can be drunk for only five dollars.

Wild musangs - animals are very legible, sort of coffee gourmets. They choose only the best, ripe coffee berries. To attract wild musangs to the coffee farm, farmers leave them at night lighted torches baskets with berries. From a kilogram of animals can select only twelve grains. In the morning, workers collect the animal excrement left behind.

On farms for the production of coffee "Luvak" animals have no such freedom of choice, they have to eat those coffee beans that the owner gives, which makes the quality of the drink somewhat lower. This explains the fluctuation in the price of a kilo of coffee "Luvak": "wild" is much more than "farmer". But to reproduce the process of fermenting grains by artificial means, without the participation of animals, the producers of "Kopi Luvak" did not succeed.

The cost of coffee is explained by several facts. First, every day musang eats about one kilogram of coffee berries, and on the output you get only 50 grams of coffee grains "Luvak". Secondly, the enzyme necessary for the processing of grains in the gastrointestinal tract of animals, is produced in their body only six months a year. In order not to feed animals half a year idle, farmers release them to freedom, and then again catch. Thirdly, in captivity, musangs do not multiply, and their livestock should be increased at the expense of wild individuals.