Drinking Kopi Luwak

Yep....

I'm sitting here drinking the legendary Kopi Luwak as I type.

Most people are probably aware of this bean and think of it in the terms Angie described it... "that poop coffee".

The Civet Cat (a distant relative of the Mongoose) eats ripe coffee cherries and passes the coffee beans undigested. They say undigested anyway but this coffee has a slightly unusual look when green so the process has done something to the beans for sure and I suppose the stomach acids have etched the beans or something but anyway...

The bean roasted up great and there were no bad odors wafting around and if anything the roast was uneventful. Completed roast was slightly mottled but no biggie.

After 50 hours rest my first taste....

Dry aroma: different! Mostly cherry is what I get but it's like cherry pit more than fruit. My descriptors are what they are and often they don't even make sense to me why they come out like they do, I just don't argue as I have learned to trust them so... dry aroma cherry pit.

Wet aroma: interesting....leather rope. Really tasty smelling leather rope for sure and if you are not a coffee person just ignore that and pretend I said very dark chocolate. :)

First bit into cupping spoon: wild!! it has an almost golden look to it. A golden tea sheen of sorts in the spoon...trippy. Slurp.... it's good! Man am I happy that it's good.

First few moments with the cup: A well bodied cup doing everything I would figure from a Sumatra/Indo cup but with an unusual acidity. It's making the roof of my mouth a little tingly. This is a pleasant cup.

Mid cup: Great body, earthy, and that acidity thing is really wild...still tingling. I am trying to give attention to the journey this bean took to get to me. Not just the digestive part but it's just been a really long journey for such a limited supply to get from a coffee cherry that caught the Civet's eye a zillion miles away to my cup in Sugar Land, Texas. Amazing really.

As the cup cools I am coming back to that leather rope vibe and it is starting to dominate along with some decent chocolaty notes and the acidity is either facing or I just can't pick it out anymore from the deep body of this cup.

Final thoughts: I feel lucky to have the opportunity to sample this legendary coffee. It is rare, expensive, often counterfeit, and probably just as often poorly prepared. Watching this bean go from green to my cup I know it was as close to perfect as an be expected. I look forward to trying this bean as espresso, single origin and blended, French Press, AeroPress, Iced, and vac pot to experience it as fully as possible while it is here. I just tasted the last sip of this rare bean and I did note that acidity again but either muted now or I can't grasp it anymore I just can't tell.

And that is all for now.....Kopi Luwak...wow, that was epic man....simply epic!