The Real Poop on Kopi Luwak!

www.rocketfuelcoffee.com Rises to the challenge.

So many elements must go into a successful small business. Drive, passion, knowledge, skills, patience, a mentor or two and of course, luck. Finding products, and then marketing them is a challenge, and doing it online is whole new set of skills. For my year old online business selling rare coffees at www.rocketfuelcoffee.com, no textbook, mentor or coffee maven could help me. I had a problem that truly only experience and process would solve.

It all came down to whether the cat poop was real or not. And we were talking about serious cat poop here.

www.rocketfuelcoffee.com is an web-based coffee company that sells fresh rare coffees online. The star of that line is Kopi Luwak. Often referred to as “Cat Poop Coffee”, this coffee is the rarest, most expensive coffee in the world. From Sumatra, Indonesia, luwaks, or Asian palm civets, which look more like weasels than cats, wander the forests and dine on red coffee cherries. They tend to pick the ripest, sweetest fruits. The inner bean of the cherry is not digested and the enzymes from the civet’s stomach add to the coffee flavor by breaking down the coffee proteins that give the coffee its bitter taste. When the civet defecates, the clumps of beans are still practically in their original form.

The beans are washed, dried and city roasted (light to medium) so not destroy the complex flavors that develop through the process. Light roasting is considered particularly desirable in coffees that do not exhibit bitterness. Kopi Luwak cups with a rich, heavy flavor with hints of caramel or chocolate.

Now that we are all up to speed on Kopi Luwak, back to the issue of selling it. The reason the price is so high is there are only so many wild Asian palm civets pooping out wild cherries on earth as you can imagine. The price can range from $200-$900 a pound. Farmers go out to collect the cherries, some of which have been sitting on the forest floor for up to a year. But we coffee lovers want more. Palm civets are now bred in cages or on farms and their poop is collected so Kopi Luwak is more readily available. The cherries are now even Robusto or Arabica!

As with all things valuable in demand, like watches, Cuban cigars and designer bags, there will be a layer of marketers preying on the consumer with sub standard products. This is an issue I have had to deal with at www.rocketfuelcoffee.com. As a new company featuring rare coffees online, I want to offer my customers 100% genuine Kopi Luwak.

The coffee community loves a challenge like this. It is not unlike finding the holy grail of coffee beans. Across Canada I have wonderful contacts who were excited to assist me in my quest for 100% genuine Kopi Luwak. I ask them to help me taste test any bean that needs an opinion and give it a rating, as they are experts and I am only learning to be one.

The winner is in and the Kopi Luwak comes from a Game Forest Reserve in the Philippines. The civets roam free, not in cages and produce great coffee! The beans are small, full if flavor, fresh roasted to order and the price remains the same. The taste is fruity with chocolate tones, and has an exotic, wild edge. A second coffee is also available called Millionaire’s Blend, where we blend the Kopi Luwak with Cup of Excellence from Honduras.

Other coffees in my line continue to do well, roast fresh and change with response after shows like the Gourmet food and Wine Expo. Learning from customers and using meta tags, key words and online discussion forums help my business grow. It is Kopi Luwak that makes my site unique and valuable, so it must be 100% genuine and pure. Any effort on my part to fight for it is worth it. MEEOW!

New Coffees Today at Rocketfuelcoffee.com! YUM!

Serving over 1000 shots of coffee tells you something!

This past November it was a thrill and an an exhausting exercise to have a 4 day booth at the Gourmet Food and Wine Expo Toronto. Since it as just before Christmas, cheer was everywhere and as the only specialty coffee company on the floor who did not serve lattes or espresso, I had my work cut out for me! Try explaining to a guy and his girlfriend who were hammered that no, you cannot make them two short espressos!

However, the show was a huge success and I sold over 120 pounds of Rocketfuelcoffee.com beans. The response was fantastic on the shots I served, particularly on Saturday night when we had a tasting of Kopi Luwak! Jamaican Blue was also a hit, as was Mysore Nuggets from India. Oh they loved the name!

The best news out of the show had to be what I learned about my coffees. Folks want bolder stronger coffees. They love that packaging, the quality, the name. Sure. But if you are going to have a rocket on it, baby it better shoot to the moon. Lesson learned and message received.

Rocketfuel Triple X, while very nice as a blend of my 3 gorgeous coffees, Kona, Jamaican Blue and Sumatra have been sent packing. Announcing the NEW TRIPLE X: Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Organic Bold. Shade grown, Fair Trade, highest quality and smooth with a fruit sweetness and touch of spice. It will knock you socks off. Kenya, the birthplace of coffee, has given us our new coffee staple. As for the next special treat for Rocketfuelcoffee.com customers, we found that maybe a deeper, sexier Hawaiian Kona might be what our line needed! George, our maven of all things bean, agreed. So Hawaiian Kona Dark will be featured for the next while and we think you will agree. The floral, citrus flavors will be there, but moodier, deeper and almost brown sugar and cinnamon.

Oh and I saved the best for last. Right now I have a promotion on where when you spend $20 or more, you get a free Rocketfuelcoffee.com mug. Come on. What are you waiting for?

Oh when your beans are *ahem* hand made!

100% Genuine Rocketfuelcoffee.com Kopi Luwak "Cat Poop" Civet Coffee

Every shipment of genuine www.rocketfuelcoffee.com Kopi Luwak, the rarest and most expensive coffee in the world comes in with a new adventure in the bag. The stress level is both exciting and petrifying, as the coffee is paid for up front and customers are waiting for delivery. The coffee is in such short supply and the delivery of poor, fake or blended product is common. We have an excellent reputation for great KL.

When the beans arrive from our supplier in Indonesia, via Milwaukee, we inspect them carefully. A couple of times we have had to put them aside. American customs likes to open coffee looking for drugs, but they do not realize this coffee costs as much or more than some drugs. So the package might be ruined - although we can usually salvage that.

Once the beans were roasted too light, a "Cinnamon Roast". These beans must be roasted City to City Plus to reveal their true flavour. We order such small amounts that George, our coffee guru cannot roast them here. Back they went. Only the best beans get to go out to you.


There are farm raised civets and wild civets. Wild civets only produce a tiny amount and when farmers go and pick up their cherries, some may have been there over a year. This does not affect the coffee, it just makes the beans look rough and irregular. Farm raised civets, sometimes kept in pens or cages, produce more uniform cherries and more of them. The taste is more uniform and less exotic, but can be controlled. Also the supply and price can be controlled too. BUT be wary of what you are buying and ensure you are buying 100% pure genuine palm civet coffee.

At rocketfuelcoffee.com, in fact all through my professional life as an artist or printer or business person, I have felt that the sharing of information is the key to success.

Happy New year!