Kopi Luwak aromatic civet coffee spread from locals to Dutch plantation owners and soon became their favourite, yet because of its rarity and unusual process, the civet coffee was expensive even during the colonial era. "Kopi" is the Indonesian word for coffee. "Luwak" is a local name of the Asian palm civet in Sumatra. Palm civets are primarily frugivorous, feeding on berries and pulpy fruits such as figs and palms. Civets also eat small vertebrates, insects, ripe fruits and seeds. Producers of the coffee beans argue that the process may improve coffee through two mechanisms, selection and digestion. Selection occurs as the
African palm civet the most frequently found small carnivores for sale in bushmeat markets. Upper Guinean forests in Liberia are considered a biodiversity hotspot. They have already been fragmented into two blocks. Large tracts are threatened by commercial logging and mining activities, and are converted for agricultural use including large-scale oil palm plantations in concessions obtained by a foreign company. African palm civet The African palm civet ("Nandinia binotata"), also known as the two-spotted palm civet, is a small mammal widely distributed in sub-Saharan Africa. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. The African palm civet is grey to