The world’s most prized coffee comes from partially digested beans pooped out by the Asian palm civet. Now, researchers are delving into why this “civet coffee” is so tasty.
New chemical analyses of beans collected from civet poop, alongside beans picked directly from the coffee plants, suggest that fermentation in the civet’s innards does add a little something extra to the coffee’s flavor, including amping up the fat content and the concentrations of certain aromatic compounds. These alterations help create civet coffee’s unique taste profile, researchers report October 23 in Scientific Reports.
Asian palm civets (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) are catlike mammals found from India to Indonesia that love fruit —