Why is it so famous? Well, basically we are ingesting coffee made of cat shit. Or to be more exact, civet cat shit.
Coffee 'produced' by the civet cat lose much of the bitterness but preserve the aroma / fragrance. Note that there is no specific blend of Luwak coffee - it could be Arabica, Robusta or pretty much anything. It depends on what is fed to the civet cat!
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| From bali - kintamani, luwak coffee |
Plantations are commonly found near the area of Kintamani, where luwak 'specialty' shops are a dime a dozen.
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| From bali - kintamani, luwak coffee |
Most of the places will have some things in common: Little chalets with hill views, a mini store selling their very own brand of coffee, and civet cats on display.
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| From bali - kintamani, luwak coffee |
The plantation we visited was Abian Sari Agro Wisata.
The plantation owner was obliging enough to let the kepoh tourists stir-fry (or whatchacallit) his coffee.
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| From bali - kintamani, luwak coffee |
We saw some buah salak (snakeskin fruit) for sale. It's a sweet-sourish fruit with crunchy flesh.. I don't really know how to describe it. Tastes weird.
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| From bali - kintamani, luwak coffee |
It is quite common to have stores serve several complimentary types of coffee, while Luwak coffee may be served at a premium (read: exorbitant) price. But it's fine for us as we still get to enjoy many varieties of coffee at the same time.
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| From bali - kintamani, luwak coffee |
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| From bali - kintamani, luwak coffee |
Personally I do not find Bali-style coffee to my liking - it seems like a common practice to pop a couple of teaspoons of the coffee powder, and pour hot water directly and drink. Without filters! There's a lot of coffee powder rather like oatmeal by the time you are halfway through your cuppa.
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| From bali - kintamani, luwak coffee |
But then again, it could be a coincidence. There could be other places serving really, reeaallly nice Bali coffee that we were not lucky enough to find.
