In December 2011 a new restaurant, nightclub and bar opened at 9 Rupert Street in the Piccadilly area of the UK’s capital. Located next to the London Trocadero on the corner of Rupert and Coventry Streets, Dstrkt has transformed the site once occupied by Planet Hollywood and the Rex cinema. Included in its menu is Kopi Luwak – Asian civet coffee.
£70 Civet Cat Coffee Available at Dstrkt in Piccadilly
Talking to the Daily Mail, Fraser Donaldson, Dstrkt’s operations manager and one of its partners, assured the newspaper that Kopi Luwak is “… not a gimmick. The beans actually make a really, really nice cup of coffee. The way it is made might put some people off… ” its price too might put some people off – at £70 per cup it does not come cheap.
What makes Kopi Luwak so expensive is the journey the coffee beans undertake prior to being harvested by hand. The small Asian palm civet is a nocturnal animal that likes to eat the sweetest, ripest coffee cherries. The pulp from the cherries gets digested in the animal’s stomach but the beans do not and eventually pass naturally from the civet in its droppings.
Civet Dung Collected by Hand for the Coffee Beans Inside it
It is these excreta that are searched for and gathered from forest undergrowth in the mountain areas of Indonesia where the Asian civets roam. The droppings are collected by hand and then washed, revealing the beans. These undigested coffee beans are then roasted locally before being sold on to manufacturers who distribute them as a gourmet coffee at an exclusively gourmet price.
With such a labour intensive method of farming civet coffee beans, it is no surprise that the brew is so expensive and, as demand continues to grow amongst coffee connoisseurs throughout the world, it can only become more costly.
Wholesale Demand for Kopi Luwak Quadruples in One Year
Speaking to Discovery News in March 2011, one Luwak producer demonstrated the coffee’s burgeoning demand by explaining that "… in 2008, I gathered about 50 kilograms of Luwak beans and sold them to local distributors. In 2009, I sold 300 kilograms. In 2010, I sold 1.2 tonnes." However, some experts maintain that it is only beans from the droppings of truly wild civets that make the tastiest drink.
Whether the beans used at Dstrkt are from wild civets or those pampered and farmed specifically for the purpose of dung collection will probably never be known. However, it is nice to know that, should the urge to try this rather bizarre brew descend upon one when in London, that it is available at Dstrkt just a short stroll from Piccadilly Circus underground station.
Elaine Findlay - An expert cook, Findlay's passion for food is evidenced by the size of her kitchen and her library of old recipe books
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