What does "Mugged" mean?
Subject: Cat's Ass Coffee
Coffee Mugged: Kopi Luwak
Rating: 2+ [see key]
Kopi Luwak, the only coffee lucky enough to enjoy a trip through a civet, is a coffee that I have long sought to try. Sure it sounds gross to drink a coffee that has been defecated out of the jungle equivalent of a raccoon, but with a price tag in the hundreds for a single pound, who wouldn't be curious?
But my long abstinence came to an end when Cat's Ass Coffee offered to send me out a sampling. Completely flattered, as this coffee is not cheap, I readily accepted with hopes of trying something different.
I received the coffee one sunny day and opening up the coffee, I noticed that the beans were big, plump and extremely black (the darkness from being really over-roasted). I brewed the coffee in the usual three infusions of drip, french press and siphon.
The french press was my first endeavor. The brew produced a really dark coffee with overpowering notes of bitterness and campfire followed with notes of butter, cocoa, a little wheaty ale and a syrupy texture.
The drip delivered a similar result, with primary flavors of bitterness and a little curry along with some flecks of rum, apple, wheat, a little nut and a heavy body.
The siphon proved a little better, as I purposely brewed it a little weaker to compensate for the uber dark roast that emerged in the first two. The result was still a dark coffee with a potent body but much more cocoa, nuttiness, wheat as well as bits of rum and apple.
All three brews displayed little initial reaction with the water, displaying a flat brew common to stale beans (my deduction).
Alas, my first interaction with Kopi Luwak proved not as great as I had hoped. The coffee proved too darkly roasted to enjoy the other flavors and as mentioned above, it seemed pretty old (quality control?). Overall, there was little in this coffee (sadly) that would make me buy it for the price of normal coffee, never mind the price tag of Kopi Luwak.
note: coffee was provided free of charge and the above review is objective feedback.
