The Last of the “Special” Coffee

My good friend Phil sent me some very good coffee recently.  Today, I finished the last of it.

Last of the Shitty Coffee

Keep in mind the caption here, it’s important.

This coffee is special coffee.  Made in Indonesia, this is Javaro Luwak coffee, one of the most expensive coffees in the world.  Normally, I don’t really condone spending outrageous amounts of money for a beverage; this one time though is a good exception.  Phil’s wife was recently in Indonesia for a month and knowing my love of good coffee, got a 200 gram bag for me.  The act alone truly touched me and I thought with all of our recent visitors coming up this last week, it would be an ideal time to open it and share it with others.  It’s expensive because of the process the beans go through.  The green coffee beans are eaten by an Indonesian feral cat called the luwak…which then goes through the intestinal tract and then, not to sugar coat it, is shit out and cleaned off.  How people discovered this I’m loath to ask.

My thoughts on this coffee is that it is expensive…but I can say for this particular brand; it was delicious.  Well worth the one time purchase.  We tried it first as coffee made with a French press.  My father-in-law then experimented making Turkish coffee with it, complete with cognac and a side of water.  Time was beginning to run out on what I could make with the beans as the shelf life is only good for a week.  I began to make some very good lattes with it.

My favorite story is that I would ask people if they would care for a really shitty latte.  The looks I would get were precious enough and I would explain as much as they would want to hear about the coffee beans.  To their credit, not a single person refused and were daring enough to try it.

The coffee now is gone, the last latte pictured above was made with care and drank with appreciation.  I can’t afford to only make coffee drinks with this special coffee, but as a one time experiment, I’m glad I had the opportunity.