Trigger warning: animal cruelty adjacent
A friend of mine was gifted an 18g bag of Kopi luwak and asked me to brew it for them.
I would never buy it myself. The bag makes claims of being “processed naturally in the wild,” which sounds just like the thing where caged chickens that briefly touch dirt are basically well treated.
I will be educating my friend about this, but the bag was gifted to them and they take that very seriously. The way I see it is this is going to be brewed either way and I have some change of showing it’s just coffee and this should be a one-time thing that only happened because it was a gift.
With all that said… I’m thinking AeroPress no-dial recipe. I could conceivably make two 9g brews to have a second chance or I could take my chances on the 18g.
What should I expect in terms of roast level? Would this generally be a hard coffee to brew? Is the AeroPress no-dial recipe a safe bet or is there a new option out there to get it right on the first and only try?
For gear, I have a Eureka Mignom and a Hario Skerton Plus. I’m not above asking my friend to chip in on a better hand grinder if that’s what it takes. I have an expresso machine, which was my friend’s original request for a method, but that’s just out of the question, obviously.
There you go. I didn’t expect to find myself in this position, but I am, and I’ll like to make the best of it.
Thanks for reading.
There is no GOOD way to answer this because the general consensus is that the coffee isn’t actually any good tasting and is purely a novelty item. That said, if you are going to do aeropress, i would use the bypass method and only add the additional water AFTER you’ve tasted it so you can weaken it accordingly. I would also read up on other people’s tasting notes and adjust accordingly (wikipedia claims the luwak processing tends to remove good acidity and flavor while adding smoothness, but that it also tastes weak) https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-we-can-eat/post/this-sumatran-civet-coffee-is-crareally-terrible/2012/01/02/gIQArzolaP_blog.html
Interesting, thanks for the tips. I’ll try to get something halfway decent, if for nothing else than to be able to say “you’ve tried it, now go get some actually good coffee.”
The Aeropress should be fine. The Hario grinder is not good, but produces an OK grind, it just takes forever. Since you want to taste the unique coffee, go middle of the range on recipe: water temperature, 200F/93C, your choice of 9g for a half cup seems spot on. Personally, I’d do pour over instead, but since you have one shot, go with the technique you are most familiar with.
I’d be really interested to know if the stuff is any good.
Yeah, you make a good point about familiarity. Even if it’s not the optimal technique, I’m likely to execute it better than a technique I don’t know.
My guess is it’ll be fine, maybe a little funky. My friend has tried my Ethiopian espresso and won’t be blown away for no reason - not the way I expect a lot of people who go from Nespresso to this stuff would be.
