Civet Cats: Unmatched Natural Coffee Experts

The Western Ghats, one of the eight ‘hottest biodiversity hotspots’ in the world, are home to some unique species. Every walk in the coffee forest of our Poomaale Estate amazes us with bewildering sights of the wildlife of the Western Ghats. During one of the walks, however, when we spotted some bean-filled poop of an animal, we were forced to stop in awe. It was the scat of the Civet cat!

Regular Estate walks at the Poomaale Collective in Coorg

Civet Cats: Natural Coffee Experts!

It’s a mongoose!

It’s a raccoon!

It’s a cat!

Well, it’s none of these! It is a Civet. 

So, Why Are They Called Civet ‘Cats’?

Simply because they have a resemblance to cats – a resemblance that is not just physical but behavioural as well. When threatened, they hiss and spit like cats too. They also resemble mongooses and raccoons. Anyone who is unfamiliar with Civets can easily mistake them for regular cats. Surprisingly, they have no relation to the cat family! Asian Palm Civets (Paradoxurus Hermaphroditus), also called plainly as Civets, belong to the Viverridae family and are close relatives of African Civets, Genets and Lingsangs.

How To Identify a Civet Cat? 

Even though they can be mistaken for cats, raccoons or mongooses, most civet cats can be identified by the black-coloured fur across their faces, almost like they’re wearing a mask! Civets are nocturnal. Like all beings that don’t sleep at night, they have dark rings around their eyes. They have a long, slim body (about 40-70 cm long), a long tail, short limbs, with small and pointy noses and ears. These nocturnal beings cannot be spotted easily though, as they are most active during the inactive human hours – after sunset and before sunrise.

Homes of Civet Cats: Natural Habitats

They are found in Asian and South Asian countries – India, Srilanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. In some of these countries, they are also called ‘Toddy Cats’. They love living in the tallest trees in tropical rainforests, coffee plantations, orchards and mangroves. In urban sprawled landscapes, they can also be found galloping in parks and rooftops. They are excellent climbers and like to spend most of the day sunbathing on a treetop. They fancy night shifts, during which the forest floor becomes their playground.

Why Are They Our Natural Coffee ‘Experts’?

For Civets, picking the right coffee beans comes as naturally as pooping!

Civet cats have an unusual and impeccable ability to select only the freshest and sweetest coffee berries to eat. When the coffee bean inside the berry ripens, it imparts a certain smell to the berry. Civet’s sense of smell naturally attracts them to the best coffee fruit, which eventually gives coffee consumers the best coffee beans too! They eat the berries for their fruit and excrete the beans whole.

But coffee fruit is not all that civets like. They are omnivores and hence prefer a large platter – pulpy fruits, rats, seeds, small snakes and insects. Having this balanced diet is essential for their health and well-being.

Indian palm civet cat poop with whole coffee beans found at the Poomaale Estate in Coorg

Civets Do More Than Just Picking The Best Coffee Beans

Experts can have more than one area of expertise!

Like any other natural being/element, Civets have a special and unique place in the ecosystem. Civets contribute to the ecology by being ‘seed dispersers’. They eat seeds of various fruits whole and excrete them, improving the forest health. They also act as natural pest controllers by feeding on rats and insects, controlling their population.

World’s Most Expensive Coffee? 

Kopi Luwak is the world’s most expensive coffee. And as you must have already guessed, it is the coffee made from the beans that have been eaten, digested (fully or partially) and defecated by the civet. It is called by a variety of names in Southeast Asian Countries – Civet Cat Coffee (common name), Kape Alamid (Philippines) and Weasel Coffee (Vietnam). The most striking name, however, is ‘Cat poop coffee’. It is extremely valued and in demand in countries like the Philippines and Indonesia. 

What Makes Civet Cat Coffee So Expensive?

Exported at ₹20,000 to 25,000 per kg, Kopi Luwak is in demand worldwide. The extraordinary sourcing of coffee beans is not the only reason for its extraordinary pricing. The unique flavour and scarcity add to the price. When the Civet eats fresh coffee berries, the digestive enzymes in its digestive tract break down the protein present in the coffee bean and eliminate the regular ‘bitterness’ of the coffee, making it mild and smooth in taste. Processing this coffee is also time-consuming, gruelling and labour-intensive. The natural processing by the Civet, followed by meticulous processing by humans makes it a costly deal.

Wild Civet coffee foraged from the coffee forest of Poomaale Estate in Coorg

Is it Safe to Drink Civet Cat Poop Coffee?

In case you are wondering, Kopi Luwak is absolutely safe to consume. The final product is made by harvesting the Civet’s poop. It is then rinsed, made free of berry fragments and dried. Authentic and genuine Kopi Luwak beans are roasted at extremely high temperatures to ensure they are safe to drink. Once the beans are obtained, they are ground and brewed like other speciality coffees.

Civet Coffee: Born Out of Desperation, Now a Luxurious Commodity

Commercial Civet coffee was a product of colonisation. In the 17th century, when the Dutch colonised East Indies (present-day Indonesia), they started growing premium arabica coffee from the seeds they brought along. Later, in the early 19th century, as the Dutch coffee industry in East Indies expanded, they made reforms that stopped native cultivators from growing their own coffee. Out of desperation, the farmers scurried to find a way around the new reforms to make a living. That is when they stumbled upon the Civet’s poop that had undamaged, whole coffee beans. Upon processing it further and making it ready for consumption, they realised it had a superior taste to other coffee variants and started selling the Civet cat coffee at higher prices.

Today, Indonesia is the largest producer of Kopi Luwak in the world. What was once a product of desperation has become a luxury affair – an affair no one needs today.

An Expensive Coffee that Comes at an Even Bigger Cost

Civet Poop Coffee is a natural occurrence and a product of the Civet’s lifestyle. However, this natural ‘product’ is now being excreted out of civets in unnatural ways to meet the world’s demands of consuming ‘premium’ coffee. Commercial Kopi Luwak industries in some Southeast Asian Countries have been known to capture Civets, keep them in undermaintained cages and feed them a highly imbalanced diet of just coffee berries to get the product of their natural selection. However, when the Civets are only fed coffee fruit, their ability to pick the best berries get impaired as they’re forced to consume only one type of food. So Civets end up eating whatever it gets to survive. This highly affects their well-being, leaving them stressed and malnourished.

Civets are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, yet they continue to be exploited by profit-making companies. Once they are released, they tend to die in the wild as their natural immunity weakens. Tourists and consumers are also often misled because of the false labels the companies display. 

So, Is There a Way to Produce and Consume Civet Coffee Ethically?

Several arguments state that there is no way Kopi Luwak can be grown ethically. Sure, business models can be built around the safety and care of the Civet. Several organisations like WAP (World Animal Protection) are closely monitoring the Kopi Luwak trade worldwide, especially the ones that claim to be sustainable and wildly sourced, assessing each step in the process to ensure no harm is done to the Civets. 

We believe that Civet coffee is a gift of nature. And we don’t get gifts every day, do we? When we try to manufacture a gift, we stop treasuring it. The beauty of civet coffee lies in the element of surprise and in its unpredictability. So when we finally are granted this gift, we know better than to reduce it into a chain of profit and loss.