Civet Poop Coffee!

My culinary student and former barista nephew Joel slipped a fun present into my Christmas stocking this year. (For those of you who are now crushed because you were laboring under the delusion belief that only Santa fills stockings, my sincerest apologies.)

It was this!

Famed as one of the most prized and expensive coffees in the world, Kopi Luwak is produced in Indonesia. The coffee berries are eaten by the Asian Palm Civet (an adorable little animal), pooped out, gathered, cleaned, roasted, and the resultant coffee is flavorful and reputedly less bitter than other coffees.

Who knew? I didn't know, but my nephew did, and he was insistent upon tasting the coffee with me.

So off we marched to the kitchen to brew a pot and try it out. Joel's mom wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea of any coffee having to do with poop coming anywhere near her coffee maker, so we brewed it in the French Press - which was much more fun anyway.

As you'll see, we boiled the water, filled the press with coffee, added the water, and waited.

After the appropriate wait time, we pressed the coffee and tried it out!

Well what was the verdict? My nephew and I both wished we'd made the coffee a bit stronger. But that said, it was very smooth, very flavorful, with no bitterness at all. Two thumbs up!

And yes, it smells like coffee - it doesn't smell like poop!