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!