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Civets eat many other things besides coffee cherries in the wild, so the captive animals are malnourished, stressed, and sick. Now a more intensive farming method is used in which the civets are kept in battery cages, like those for battery hens, and force-fed only coffee cherries. Initially, wild civets consumed the beans, and people would collect their feces where they dropped them. It is made from the digested coffee cherries eaten and excreted by the Asian palm civet.
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Trigger warning for the squeamish and animal lovers! This is an eye-wateringly expensive Sumatran coffee processed in a highly unusual way. There is a great deal of fraud and controversy around this coffee, and many people say that its only appeal lies in the novelty of how it is made rather than the taste. It is famously the world’s most expensive coffee. You may come across Kopi Luwak or civet coffee in your search for Sumatran coffees. This article looks at the best Sumatra coffee beans and why they’re special. Wet hulling is a faster process that primarily counters the risk of bacterial growth causing defects in the beans before they dry. It is difficult to dry coffee beans in constant dampness, and standard processing would take much longer, costing the coffee producers money because they can’t quickly get their products to market.
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Poor quality beans can taste bad, so don’t compromise. Some are available from Amazon, but you can also order from the company. The 12 best Sumatra coffee beans are sold by Volcanica, AmazonFresh, Copper Moon, Starbucks, Peach Coffee Roasters, and Infinity Beanz. Most of the flavor comes from the wet-hull processing method called giling basah, traditional in Indonesia, where the humidity is between seventy and ninety percent all year. Coffee drinkers either hate it or love it, and there’s no middle ground. Sumatran coffee is something different in the world of coffee, firstly because it’s a rarity and secondly because of the way it’s processed.
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