India, Asia’s third-largest producer and exporter of coffee, started producing the world’s most expensive coffee, known as civet coffee or kopi luwak.
In the country’s largest coffee-growing area in the southern state of Karnataka, a start-up firm, Coorg Consolidated Commodities, produces the luxury coffee on a small scale. Narendra Hebbar, one of the founders of the company explained that civet cats eat the flesh of coffee cherries, but not the bean. The animal’s excreta contains the partially digested seeds or beans which are sourced from plantations located close to the forest from where the wild civet cats come to eat the ripest coffee cherries. Natural enzymes in the civet’s stomach enhance the flavor of the bean which makes this coffee unique.
The Economic Times reports that in India, this specialty coffee sells at $65 per pound (a cup of kopi luwak can sell for as much as $80); its price includes the cost of sourcing the animal droppings, processing the beans, accounting for the wastage during processing and acquiring quality certifications.
Coorg Consolidated Commodities has signed a contract with a company in Dubai for exporting the coffee, and aims to produce three tons of it by next year.
