This luxury 'cat poo' coffee has a unique flavour: what's behind it?

"It has been described as nutty, chocolatey, earthy and even fishy: a wildly expensive coffee that can sell for more than 100 times the price of regular brews, made from beans eaten and excreted by civet cats. Scientists have long wondered what lies behind civet coffee's unique flavour. A team now says that the digested beans contain high levels of two compounds commonly used as flavouring agents in dairy products - and these might contribute to the coffee's distinctive taste."

"Civet coffee is produced across Asia. Called Kopi Luwak in its origin country of Indonesia, it grabbed international attention after being featured in the 2007 film The Bucket List. Asian palm civets ( Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) eat the fruit or cherries of coffee shrubs, and the seeds (commonly called beans) can be picked from their scat. These are then roasted to make coffee with a unique flavour; the resulting beans can cost more than US$1,300 per kilogram, and the coffee up to $75 per cup."

"Zoologist Palatty Allesh Sinu at the Central University of Kerala in India, and ecologist colleagues took a close look at the beans picked from civet poo across the Indian district of Kodagu, where the civets are wild. The team undertook the study not only to get a better handle on what makes civet coffee tasty, but also to promote animal welfare. "Once we know the enzymes involved in digestion and fermentation, we may be able to artificially make civet coffee" and leave the animals out of it, Sinu says."

A study examined coffee beans recovered from wild civet scat in Kodagu, India, and detected high concentrations of two compounds commonly used as dairy flavouring agents. These compounds are likely contributors to the nutty, chocolatey and earthy notes attributed to civet coffee. The brew commands premium prices that have spurred tourism and incentivized farms using caged civets, raising significant animal-welfare and zoonotic-risk concerns. Identifying the digestive enzymes and fermentation processes responsible for these compounds may enable artificial replication of civet coffee flavour without involving animals. Previous research has focused on flavour origins and fraud detection.

Read at Nature