I’d kind of heard about luwak coffee a few months before we left on our trip, but I didn’t really pay close attention to the description, only that it was the most expensive coffee in the world.
On the way home from Pura Lempuyang, we stopped in at a little farm where they grow coffee beans, cocoa, and spices, and they also produce luwak coffee.
In case you aren’t up on the latest in the world of strange beverages, luwak coffee is produced by coffee beans that have first been eaten, digested and expelled by a luwak (a mongoose) and then the beans are gathered up, roasted and crushed.
Something about the stomach acids of the luwak reacting with the coffee beans makes it taste way better (supposedly) than any other kind of coffee produced.
The little farm was pretty cute, they had examples of all of the different kinds of spices and foods that they grow there, and there was a woman roasting and grinding coffee beans, and she let me take a turn.
The farm had a lovely view of a rice field, and they give you free samples of everything they produce, including a bunch of different coffees and teas. The luwak coffee was pretty good, but I didn’t think it was worth $100USD per cup.
I loved the lemongrass tea though, it tastes like the hot iced tea they used to serve us at summer camp when we were little, which was completely full of sugar and made sleeping a bit tricky, but was totally delicious. I bought a bag of it, and I wish I’d had room in my backpack to buy all the bags they had.
They had one little mongoose there so people could see what a luwak actually looked like. He was very small and cute and I wanted to adopt him.
loveliness. 