Most people mention Vietnamese weasel coffee, but actually, civets are grown to process this type of coffee. So, in the article, calling civet or weasel is the same meaning.
Weasel coffee in Vietnam is produced by feeding weasel with fresh coffee berries, then taking the beans from their feces to clean and process into roasted and ground coffee.
The digestive system of civets secretes chemicals that give weasel coffee a special flavor. In the world, only a few countries can produce this type of coffee such as Indonesia, Philippines, Ethiopia, and Vietnam in very limited quantities.
Weasel coffee is quite expensive because the production process of this coffee is also very special.
How is weasel coffee in Vietnam?
Weasel coffee is a special coffee, ranked among the most unique drinks in the world. The taste of coffee beans is changed by going through the process of digesting coffee beans in the stomachs of weasels, especially by the action of enzymes that change the components inherent in coffee beans.
If you take the time to enjoy this cup of coffee, you will feel the Vietnamese weasel coffee flavor similar to the smell of smoke but faintly chocolatey, slightly fatty, less sour and pleasant.
Where does weasel coffee come from?
Weasel coffee has the English name Kopi Luwak, in which the word “Kopi” means coffee in the Indonesian language, and “Luwak” is the name of a region on the island of Java and also the name of a civet cats living in the area of that island.
The civets mentioned are also known as spotted civet, palm civet or loofah, scattered throughout the countries of Southeast Asia. In Vietnam, people raise civets to produce this typical type of coffee.
What is the price of Vietnamese weasel coffee?
High-quality weasel coffee in Indonesian is rated the best and the price is also quite high. Every year about 200kg of Indonesian weasel coffee is sold on the world market.
In addition, the production of this type of coffee in other countries is also very limited. For example, weasel coffee is produced in the Central Highlands Vietnam, using the same production process as in Indonesia.
The price of Vietnamese weasel coffee ranges from a few hundred thousand to several tens of millions of dong per kilogram depending on the origin.
In central highland Vietnam, including Da Lat and Buon Ma Thuoc, you can taste a cup of Vietnamese weasel coffee with price of 200,000 Vietnam dong.
Specifically, weasel coffee in Trung Nguyen – a famous coffee brands in Vietnam (updated to 2021) has many types such as:
- Weasel premium weasel coffee is about 17 million VND/box of 250gram.
- Legend Trung Nguyen weasel coffee is about 795 thousand VND/box of 225g.
- Mocha Legend weasel coffee is about 800,000 VND/box of 51gram.
- Natural weasel coffee is more than 4.5 million VND/box of 125gram.
Pro tips: Actually, the real high-quality of coffee is expensive for natural collection, also rare to get real weasel coffee in Vietnam.
So, many farms feed the weasel with the coffee beans unnaturally. Because in nature, weasels will choose the best ripe of coffee fruits to eache. After dropping, these are the quite great high-quality, which is suitable for extremely high price.
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Where to see the process of making Vietnamese weasel coffee
A weasel coffee farm with 2.4 hectares wide in Trai Ham area, Ward 10, Da Lat City, Lam Dong, Vietnam becomes an interesting destination for many domestic and foreign tourists by seeing the famous and unique weasel coffee production process.
The first weasel coffee farm in this mountain town of Da Lat is invested more than 42 billion VND. The owner set up this farm after many years of research and acquisition of moka coffee gardens that are in the period of harvest.
Not only having a coffee garden, the owner of this farm also makes cages and raises 120 weasels (actually civets) to produce weasel coffee according to a closed process. And this is also the reason that tourists come to this farm.
Weasel coffee, or rather weasel manure coffee, is currently sold by this farm for 20 million VND/kg of dried beans.
Ripe coffee berries are eaten by weasels. Each time weasels only choose to eat about 30-40% of the coffee beans provided by the owner. After that, the coffee beans comes out with the same manure, and harvested, washed, dried, then put in the incubator for a certain time and then roast, ground them into powder and enjoyed.
You will see a clean coffee garden and go to the weasel farming area to see firsthand how this interesting Vietnamese weasel coffee is produced.
Weasel coffee in Vietnam is only produced from coffee beans discharged by flavorful weasel. Originally due to the large size of the brown weasel, the teeth are also strong, so it often chews and breaks the husk covering the coffee beans, causing the coffee beans to absorb gastric juice and weasel droppings, so the smell is extremely unfriendly, and cannot be turned into a drink.
In contrast, weasel’s size is small, so the husk covering the coffee beans is kept intact, ensuring a delicious and attractive flavor for the coffee beans.
Flavorful weasels in Vietnam are present a lot in the Nam Truong Son – the southern range of Vietnamese mountains, the area around Cat Tien National Park.
Due to hunting, wildlife trade, the shrinking of tropical forests, the number of flavorful weasels in Vietnam is also decreasing, has been included in the Red Book, with a high risk of extinction.
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