Kopi Luwak profile. Vietnamese companies sell an imitation kopi luwak, made using an enzyme soak which they claim replicates the civet's digestive process. Imitation has several motivations. The high price of kopi luwak drives the search for a way to produce kopi luwak in large quantities. Kopi luwak production involves a great deal of labour, whether farmed or wild-gathered. The small production quantity and the labor involved in production contribute to the coffee's high cost. Imitation may be a response to the decrease in the civet population. Initially, civet coffee beans were picked from wild civet excrement found around coffee plantations. This
Banded palm civet Banded palm civet The banded palm civet ("Hemigalus derbyanus"), also called the banded civet, is a civet found in the Sundaic region and occurs in peninsular Myanmar, peninsular Malaysia, peninsular Thailand and in Indonesia on the islands of Sipura, Sumatra and Borneo. It is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List because of its large geographic and elevation range and tolerance to some habitat disturbance. "Hemigalus" is a monospecific genus that was first named and described by the French zoologist Claude Jourdan in 1837. Having roughly the size of a domestic cat, this viverrid measures from 41 to