Deciphered: Weasel Coffee (?!) vs. Kopi Luwak

Disclaimer: I'm no coffee connoisseur. Hence whatever that I expressed here is purely based on my experience and personal taste. I believe coffee, like wine is as personal as underwear. Just as one man's meat is another man's poison.

When Hubs came back from his buddy's bachelor trip in Ho Chi Minh recently, he bought back like 4 packets of the Vietnamese version of Kopi Luwak i.e. Weasel Coffee. When I first saw the name, my first thought was "Who in the world name this as weasel coffee?!" Personally, I think it's like taking a mickey out of it.

According to Hubs, they were pretty good when he had them in the many cafes in HCM and found a place that sold the coffee powder at an affordable price. Anyway my interest piqued and decided to read more about it on the net. What I found out is that mostly the ones sold in Vietnam are so-called chemically simulated versions i.e. using various chemical ingredients to mimic digestive juices of the luwak to process the beans. Taste-wise when I made myself a cuppa, wasn't any different from a typical Vietnamese coffee that you would order from a Vietnamese restaurant. In fact there's a buttery taste to it which is rather overwhelming and more suited if the coffee is sweetened with condensed milk as how a Vietnamese restaurant normally prepare theirs. My conclusion is that this is no different from any mainstream Vietnamese coffee.

And as you can see from the packaging, the printing was also rather badly done that when I remove the many cellophane tapes, the brewing instruction was lifted off! I suspect Hubs may have got conned.

Over to Kopi Luwak. My first experience of this was at a dingy-looking coffee plantation in Bali. It's one of those tourist trap that my girlfriend and me signed up for. That trip itself was fine until we had to endure this coffee plantation visit. I half-suspect that it's probably somebody's small acre of land that they planted a few coffee plants and other Indonesian herbs, built a quaint souvenir shop and little cafe and with a trapped luwak, voila! a kopi luwak destination is born! Since we were there, for the heck of it, each of us bought a cup to taste. And it was disappointing. All I can taste was just bitterness that didn't get any better after adding sugar.

Spurred by all these experiences, I told Hubs, "Let's one day make a visit to the kopi luwak cafe in Grand Indo and buy ourselves a cuppa to solve the taste once and for all!" Well, before we made our way to Grand Indo, kopi luwak found its way to our doorstep instead! Through a friend, Hubs managed to get his hands on a few packets of kopi luwak from Sumatra i.e. those made of export.

And of course, with it, comes the hullaballoo of trying to find the elusive french press. Seriously, when we weren't looking for it, I see the coffee pot everywhere and when we were, it's so hard to find. Anyway, the day of reckoning was upon us when we made it a few weeks ago. It was lovely! The coffee is "kau" but without the bitterness that comes with earthy and full body coffee. I read somewhere the full flavour of the coffee comes out when served cold. The second time I made it, I deliberately allow it to cool down several degrees before taking a sip. And true enough, it tasted even better.

Let's just say I'm sold!