Digested Civet Coffee Beans (Kopi Luwak)—An Unfortunate Trend in Specialty Coffee Caused by Mislabeling of Coffea liberica?

Abstract

In the context of animal protection, the trend of digested coffees such as Kopi Luwak produced by civet cats in captivity should not be endorsed. Previous studies on such coffees may have been flawed by sample selection and misclassification. As wild civets may prefer Coffea liberica beans, due to their higher sugar content, the chemical differences may be caused by the Coffea species difference combined with a careful selection of ripe, defect-free cherries by the animals, rather than changes caused by digestion. This may also explain the observed differences between Kopi Luwak from wild civets (mainly C. liberica) compared to the one from animals in captivity (typically fed with C. arabica and/or C. canephora).