The individual
beans are naturally glued together
in the stomach of the Luwak, there
is no artificial adhesive involved,
yet kopi luwak collected in this
fashion appears remarkably clean
and is completely odour free. A
bagful of freshly collected kopi
luwak in its natural state is brittle
and needs to be transported carefully
to avoid ending up as individual
beans, which are generally unacceptable
to Animalcoffee.
To obtain beans
while still in this state they must
be collected almost immediately
after they are deposited on the
forest floor. Once they have been
exposed to the elements for even
a very short period, particularly
in the rainy season, they break
down into individual beans and we
can no longer be sure that they
are genuine kopi luwak.