July 7, 2011
Weasel Coffee: You’re Going to Drink What?
Cafe Mai's cup of ca phe cut chon. Photo courtesy of Jon Brand
On a recent trip to Hanoi, Vietnam’s coffee-mad capital, a local friend exhorted me to seek out a cup of ca phe cut chon—what she cryptically referred to as “weasel coffee.”
Having happily consumed a variety of Vietnamese java at cafés across the city, including the sublime ca phe sua da, iced espresso blended with sweetened condensed milk, I was looking forward to another great-tasting experience. Then I Googled ca phe cut chon.
Cut chon is Vietnamese for civet cat dung.
The civet cat, not a cat but a relative of the mongoose, is native to Southeast Asia’s jungles. Sometime after French colonists introduced robusta coffee to Vietnam in the mid-19th century, coffee growers found that beans eaten and excreted by wild civets produced a richer, more mellow drink than those simply harvested from the fields. (The practice began, supposedly, when European colonists wouldn’t share coffee beans with natives, who wanted to try the drink and resourcefully picked the beans out of civet dung.)
Many coffee producers use captive civets today, but the process remains the same. Civets are fed robusta coffee cherries, the coffee plant’s fruit. The civet’s digestive enzymes partially ferment the fruit’s stones—coffee beans—and strip much of their harsh flavors. (Bitter-tasting robusta, arabica’s cheaper, faster-growing cousin, is ubiquitous in Vietnam. Which is why sweetened condensed milk is a constant companion to Vietnamese black coffee.) After a thorough washing, the “dung” beans are roasted and ready for brewing.
All of this sounded a bit unpleasant, but a friend and I mustered up the courage to taste ca phe cut chon one sweltering afternoon at Café Mai, a Hanoi institution famous for its version of the drink. Sitting on a balcony overlooking a motorbike-filled street, we ordered two coffees. Small white cups topped with piping hot metal drip coffee filters arrived at the table. When the coffee was ready, we removed the filters, examined the dark brew and took a sip.
I braced myself for pungent, earthy flavors. Instead, the coffee was smooth and rich, all salty caramel and bittersweet chocolate. The sharp bite that I had come to associate with Vietnamese coffee was nonexistent. “It tastes like 99% cacao,” my friend said excitedly.
We lingered over the drinks for a while and then called for the bill—at 55,000 Vietnamese dong, or $2.70, it was more expensive than a typical Hanoi cup, but well worth the difference in flavor.
Only later did I realize that we’d grossly underpaid. It turns out that certified civet-fermented coffee, which is also produced in Indonesia and the Philippines, can sell for up to $600 per pound. At a London department store recently, a single cup cost £50, or $80.
So how does Café Mai keep the price down? They’ve cut civets out of the production process. Using artificial fermenting methods, Café Mai, along with other Vietnamese roasters like Trung Nguyen, have brought the flavor of ca phe cut chon to the masses.
Whether the traditionally fermented coffee truly tastes different, I obviously can’t say. But if you have $600 burning a hole in your wallet, order some and let Food & Think know.
—By Jon Brand, a writer based in Austin, Texas. You can read more of his work at www.jonbrandwrites.com.
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A package of “weasel” coffee in the old quarter is about $8.
So I reckon no weasels were used in the process:)
It is also fairly common in Hanoi to call good coffee “weasel” coffee, so it is sometimes hard to tell if a weasel ever came near the stuff. Reputable brands such as Trung Nguyen, Cafe Mai, and Highlands Coffee can be trusted to deliver on what they say. Weasel brand here in the US uses authentic weasel coffee in its higher-end blends and yes, it does make a smooth mocha-like brew.
Nothing like the best Kopi Luwak (aka Civet Cat dung coffee) to get you going in the morning!
The Vietnamese -Premium Weasel Coffee – weaselcoffees.com
What is the Weasel Coffee ? The definition of Weasel coffee sometime make coffee drinkers wonder and curious ! today – weaselcoffees.com ( The one of the Best Coffee producer) will reveal about this,
Daily Delight, Mr’s Phong Private Researve and Masterpiece of weasel coffee from vietnam will refresh you after or begining a new day
1) Weasel : or Civet : the name of animal lives in Buon me thuat or highlands of Tay NGuyen , south of vietnam, this animal love eating the best and ripest coffee fruit. ( Just eating Coffee bean without eating much other bean, some people beleave that this animal also eat the Soyal bean or vegetable.. fruits. They choose the ripest and sweet bean in the garden or wild hills
The Civet or weasel
Most types of weasels found in Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and China are meat-eaters. However, one type of civet in Buon Ma Thuot Province in Vietnam only eats fruits, with ripe coffee cherries as its staple. Being a nocturnal animal, it only feeds at night , round of 10pm to 3 am , this time supposed tobe best for degestation
Wild weasels run and walk around the coffee plantations, Tay Nguyen highlands, southern hills eat the best and ripest coffee fruit and then after some time, leave their droppings or that’s called ” Dung” around with the coffee beans relatively undigested and intact. However, the enzymatic process that happens inside their stomachs give the undigested coffee beans a rather earthy, chocolaty flavor and special smell after produced when roasted and ground. This unique, distinctive taste is priced by coffee connoisseur who pay heavily for this special type of coffee. With only around 700 kg of weasel coffee harvested per year in Indonesia and Vietnam,
The Wild Weasel coffee is beleaved the most expensive coffee ( wild weasel – the weasel or citvet which is wild and not feeded by farmers and humans)
the farmers have to collect theirs droppings or “Dung” when they go inside the Jungle or highlands.
Farming Weasel coffee: which is feeded by farmers , now there are many coffee plantations in Tay NGuyen which feed Weasel and raise weasel, civets at home or their plantations…. The Farmers force the Civets and weasel to eat all the time and everyday , this make the production and “weasel coffee” is not as well as Wild Weasel coffee and cheaper
Love of cherrie
According to the research done by Professor Massimo Marcone at the University of Guelph in Canada, during the weasel’s digestive process, enzymes pass through the bean’s pectin layer and penetrate inside the bean, changing the protein and molecular structure, adding sugars as well as creating smaller molecules. This cause the delightful taste and distinctive aroma of weasel coffee.
Buon Ma Thuot in Vietnam is one of the only two coffee-growing regions in the world where authentic civet coffee is produced. Weasel coffee from this region has an excellent chocolaty taste and distinctive aroma that is markedly different from those produced in other areas. This is partly due to the non-meat diet of the weasels and partly due to the topography of the area, with its basaltic soil and mineral-rich Dray Sap waterfalls making the area more fertile. All of these factors make Buon Ma Thuot’s weasel coffee popular and Great, we call Great of Coffee
The Average price for Authentic weasel coffee – Weasel coffee on Farm in Buon Ma Thuat now cost round of 700 – 1200$/killo
The Wild Weasel Coffee : cost at least from 1500$/killo to 3500$/killo
There some coffee in hanoi such as some street shop with name of ” Weasel coffee ” is not the authentic and real or pure weasel coffee, I live in Hanoi for more than 7 years and drink coffee dailly, i tasted and smelled of this many times, most of this Weasel coffee is mixed – coffee , or coffee mixed with Soyal Bean and Grounded-Sugar Corn and some others China-spacy added. people will never know where is the real and authentic weasel coffee ?? not easy to distinguish.
Warnings: If somebody sell you a ” weasel coffee” cost 20 – 40 $/ 100gram – ==> should check it, check and test with other normal coffee.
The authentic weasel coffee: 70 -100$/100gram; reliable and also need to check
The best way is : should buy weasel coffee from someone reliable , like your closed friend and directly at farm…
Some weasel coffee is mixed with 40-70% of authentic weasel coffee bean, this also called weasel, but cheaper and not as strong as 100% weasel coffee favor
in Sanfrancisco , there is a Sole Vietnamese premium weasel coffee Distributor in USA, weaselcoffees.com , here you can buy authentic weasel coffee and iced-coffee, and cherries coffee, all Buon Me Thuat coffees are available here
The coffee is produced with the special method from Buon Me Thuat Manufactory and then shipped to Us by Airline or ship in a week, this coffee named Daily Delight, Mr’s Phong private researve or Masterpice, with reasonable price, the coffee here with various types used for gifts, business, home-drink, …
Civets aren’t weasels. They’re not even related.
it easy, it coffee ,make it happen!