I think I'll "pass" personally. ;-)
At $300.00 per lb. that's some seriously expensive shit!

http://www.sallys-place.com/beverage...kopi_luwak.htm

Coffee grows in dozens of countries around the world. Some varieties
have earned a special reputation, often based on a combination of
rarity, unusual circumstances and particularly good flavor. These
coffees, from Jamaican Blue Mountain to Kona to Tanzanian Peaberry,
command a premium price. But perhaps no coffee in the world is in such
short supply, has such unique flavors and an, um, interesting background
as Kopi Luwak. And no coffee even comes close in price: Kopi Luwak sells
for $75 per quarter pound. Granted, that's substantially less than
marijuana, but it's still unimaginably high for coffee.

Kopi (the Indonesian word for coffee) Luwak comes from the islands of
Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi (formerly Celebes), which are part of the
Indonesian Archepelago's 13,677 islands (only 6,000 of which are
inhabited). But it's not strictly the exotic location that makes these
beans worth their weight in silver. It's how they're "processed."

On these Indonesian islands, there's a small marsupial called the
paradoxurus, a tree-dwelling animal that is part of the sibet family.
Long regarded by the natives as pests, they climb among the coffee trees
eating only the ripest, reddest coffee cherries. Who knows who first
thought of it, or how or why, but what these animals eat they must also
digest and eventually excrete. Some brazen or desparate -- or simply
lazy -- local gathered the beans, which come through the digestion
process fairly intact, still wrapped in layers of the cherries'
mucilage. The enzymes in the animals' stomachs, though, appear to add
something unique to the coffee's flavor through fermentation.

Curiously, Kopi Luwak isn't the only "specialty" food that begins this
way. Argan is an acacia-like tree that grows in Morocco and Mexico
which, through its olive-like fruit, yields argan oil. In Morocco, the
Berbers encourage goats to climb the trees to eat the fruit. They later
gather the goats' excrement and remove the pits, which they grind for
oil to be used in massage, in cooking and as an aphrodisiac.

What started as, presumably, a way for the natives to get coffee without
climbing the trees has since evolved into the world's priciest specialty
coffee. Japan buys the bulk of Kopi Luwak, but M.P. Mountanos
(800-229-1611), the first in the United States to bring in this exotic
bean, recently imported 110 pounds after a seven year search for a
reliable and stable supplier. "It's the rarest beverage in the world,"
Mark Mountanos says, estimating a total annual crop of less than 500
pounds.

Richard Karno, former owner of The Novel Cafe in Santa Monica,
California, got a flyer from Mountanos about Kopi Luwak and "thought it
was a joke." But Karno was intrigued, found it it was for real, and
ordered a pound for a tasting. Karno sent out releases to the local
press inviting them to a cupping. When no one responded, he roasted it
and held a cupping for himself and his employees. Karno is very
enthusiastic, a convert to Kopi Luwak. "It's the best coffee I've ever
tasted. It's really good, heavy with a caramel taste, heavy body. It
smells musty and jungle-like green, but it roasts up real nice. The LA
Times didn't come to our cupping, but ran a bit in their food section,
which hit the AP Wire service." And Karno and the folks at M.P.
Mountanos have been inundated with calls ever since.

Mountanos says, "It's the most complex coffee I've ever tasted,"
attributing the unusual flavors to the natural fermentation the coffee
beans undergo in the paradoxurus' digestive system. The stomach acids
and enzymes are very different from fermenting beans in water. Mountanos
says, "It has a little of everything pleasurable in all coffees: earthy,
musty tone, the heaviest bodied I've ever tasted. It's almost syrupy,
and the aroma is very unique." While it won't be turning up in every
neighborhood cafe any day soon, Mountanos reports that Starbucks bought
it for cuppings within the company.

In fact, most of Mountanos' customers have bought it for special
cuppings. The Coffee Critic in San Mateo, California, though,
occasionally sells Kopi Luwak to the public for $5 a cup. Owner Linda
Nederman says she keeps the price low to allow people to experience the
coffee. Nederman says that most of her people who try it are longtime
customers, and they're "game to try something different and unusual.
I've never had anybody complain, they all seem to feel it's worth the
price." Nederman drinks it herself every time they brew it. "I've never
tasted anything like it. It's an unbelieveable taste in your mouth:
richness, body, earthiness, smooth." She also carries Jamaica Blue
Mountain, Burundi Superior AA and Brazil FZA "Natural Dry," so her
customers are used to fine and exotic coffees. Still, she reports, many
are afraid to try Kopi Luwak.

Michael Beech, founding partner in Raven's Brew Coffee:
http://www.ravensbrew.com/ or email: , a roaster,
wholesaler and mail order (800-91-RAVEN) merchant in Ketchikan, Alaska,
used to sell roasted-to-order Kopi Luwak by the quarter pound ($75,
including a free t-shirt depicting the coffee-making process) but no
longer does: http://www.ravensbrew.com/NewFiles/kopiluwak.html . "It's
excellent coffee. But I always caution customers that you can't get $75
worth of quality in any coffee, there's no such thing. You're paying for
the experience of quaffing the world's rarest and most expensive coffee.
The palate would recognize it as Sumatran or Indonesian right away. It
has earthy tones of natural processed Sumatra Mandheling. It has low
acidity with a syrupy body. There's something else there, a nuance in
the flavor profile that I can't describe, and when I've challanged
others, no one else can either. It's almost alien, a tiny little flavor
note, highly exotic." The last bag he sold was to John Cleese of Monty
Python and Fierce Creatures fame.

But not everyone is seduced by this exotic coffee's charms. "Kopi Luwak
is, in my opinion, indistinguishable from many an average robusta,
especially if you cup them next to each other," says Tim Castle, coffee
expert and author of The Perfect Cup, referring to the lower grade of
commercially available coffees. "Kopi Luwak's processing is unusual and
attracts attention. In that sense, it is an interesting coffee."

Intrigued by the hype, I drove out to the Los Angeles warehouse of M.P.
Mountanos to cup some Kopi with Andrew Vournas. The green beans, which
range from tiny to elephant, have a faint smell that hints of a zoo or
stables -- a little funky, not your average coffee aroma. He lightly
roasts about 21 grams, enough beans for three cups, in a Jabez Burns two
barrel sample roaster, a rare and beautiful machine dating from the
'30s. Vournas gives the beans a light roast -- just after the second
popping -- to accentuate the specific flavors of this rare coffee; a
darker roast would obliterate the subtler flavors and replace them with
a more generic taste. Vournas points out that this coffee, like most
Indonesian-grown, has lots of moisture and roasts nicely.

Vournas gives the beans a course grind and mixes seven grams of coffee
with four ounces of water in each of three cups. The aroma is rich and
strong, and the coffee is incredibly full bodied, almost syrupy. It's
thick with a hint of chocolate, and lingers on the tongue with a long,
clean aftertaste. It's definitely one of the most interesting and
unusual cups I've ever had.

Is it worth the money? Five dollars for a single cup? Sure, why not?
You'll pay more than that in any Paris cafe for a bad au lait. Might as
well spend it on something rare and exotic.
--
Peace, Om

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