Would you spend US$400 on a kilogramme of coffee beans that had been passed through the digestive tract of a civet cat? It’s hard to believe, but those in China who consider themselves coffee gourmets don’t blink twice at this, says Mike Yung, coffee ambassador at Hong Kong coffee specialists Graffeo.
The civet cats of Indonesia apparently love eating coffee beans, which pass through them undigested but the process changes and allegedly enhances the taste of the presumably rather nasty smelling coffee beans when roasted and turned into a drink. Can’t say I fancy it, but each to their own.
The civet cat coffee phenomenon is not new, but it’s taken the mainland Chinese to breathe new life into a fad that had largely been forgotten.
Kopi luwak coffee, as it is called, is pricey, but nothing special, says Yung. “It’s like a rare, expensive, Rolls Royce - is it the best car you car buy? No.”
Graffeo, supplier to hotels, restaurants and serious coffee drinkers, doesn’t stock it, though they will order it as a one-off for existing clients. It’s available in Hong Kong from CitySuper, he thinks, and a small coffee shop near the Galaxy casino in Macau. “I can’t remember the name, but you can recognise it from the queue of mainlanders standing outside,” he says. ”It’s not that expensive, because they only serve seven or eight grammes per cup.” It sounds like the perfect counterfeit product for a gullible audience – who is to say whether the civet cat really ate the coffee bans or not?
So what are real coffee buffs into these days? Hong Kongs’ unsophisticated tastes are changing and growing up. Coffee drinkers are still prepared to fork out HK$30 plus for a shot. Small independent coffee bars are springing up in off the track places in Mongkok, Quarry Bay and Sheung Wan, meeting demand for a lighter-roasted brew. “We’re following the trend of Europe and America for lighter roasted coffee,” explains Yung, who has long been an advocate of this. “When you don’t roast it so dark, you can taste the farmer’s hard work. When you roast it very dark it tastes of nothing, you could be drinking anything.”
