Taiwan and civet coffee

There have been various stories in the news for some time now about civet or luwak coffee.

In Indonesia, the civet cat (something like a ferret) has been used to prepare and produce some of the world’s most expensive coffee.

This animal picks and eats great coffee berries   once the berries have passed through the digestive tract of the civet cat, they are harvested, cleaned and made into a coffee blend which pleases the palette of many a coffee connoisseur.

However, as reported in the China Post recently, Taiwan is also beginning to export civet coffee too.

It is said that the new brand of this gourmet coffee will be exported to Japan in March 2013.

This is a result of a couple of years’ work and research and makes the coffee by non-traditional means.

It is called Formosan Civet coffee and is made by the Taiwan Bean Store Co.

It is a brand which uses in vitro fermentation technology, which has been developed by the Industrial Technology Research Institute.

It uses coffee cherries plus probiotics, which mimics the scent and flavour of civet coffee.

It is said to be of the same quality as civet coffee but does not require the usual in vivo process.

Let’s see how well this new product fares.

It seems that there is something of a fad for coffee creation through the use of animals.

There has also been a recent coffee product on the market which involves the digestive system of an elephant!