Kopi Luwak – also known as Cat Poop Coffee – is the most expensive coffee in the world and can be sold for up to $80 a cup! This delicacy however, is made from a cat-like Sub-Saharan creature called the Civet, according to this article on National Geographic.

In the wild, this creature would eat a diet that consists of small reptiles, fruit, and coffee cherries. Naturally, the Civet will eat only the best coffee cherries and will partially ferment the cherry during digestion and poop out a coffee bean.

According to Catpoopcoffeeinc.com, "When the cats (civets) eat the coffee berries, fermentation of the coffee beans occurs in the cat’s digestive system. During this process, the cat’s proteolytic enzymes seep into the coffee beans, thus creating shorten peptide as well as an abundance of amino acids. This is what gives this coffee it’s unique flavor and aroma. So, during this entire digestive process, the beans are transformed into the Kopi Luwak many coffee drinkers have grown to adore. This process is known to lower the bitterness of the coffee.”

When this was done in the wild, farmers would find these partially digested coffee beans and sell them as Kopi Luwak. But since people were willing to pay top dollar for this coffee, the Civets have had to pay an unfair price.

Now, there are large coffee farms where Civets live their entire lives standing on wire cages eating only coffee cherries. Some Civets are extremely thin because they aren’t eating a proper diet, and others are fat because they can never move. Regardless, all Civets live in their own poop and urine without clean drinking water.

What is interesting is that this method of mass production is causing the Kopi Luwak to lose it’s true value. Because the Civets are being fed the best and the worst of the coffee cherries, they are producing low quality Kopi Luwak, unlike the coffee that they Civets would make in the wild.

Specifically in England, this coffee is labeled “free-range”, when in fact it is far from that. The only real way to avoid supporting this animal cruelty and to drinking a nice cup of Cat Coop Coffee is to not buy it.

Please spread the word!