Kopi Luwak "Washington Post" reviewed kopi luwak available to US consumers and concluded "It tasted just like...Folgers. Stale. Lifeless. Petrified dinosaur droppings steeped in bathtub water. I couldn't finish it." Some critics claim more generally that kopi luwak is simply bad coffee, purchased for novelty rather than taste. Massimo Marcone, who performed extensive chemical tests on the beans, was unable to conclude if anything about their properties made them superior for purposes of making coffee. He employed several professional coffee tasters (called "cuppers") in a blind taste test. While the cuppers were able to distinguish the kopi luwak as distinct from the
Civet more common usage in English, the name also covers "Chrotogale, Cynogale, Diplogale, Hemigalus, Arctogalidia, Macrogalidia, Paguma," and "Paradoxurus" civets. The common name is used for a variety of carnivorous mammalian species, mostly of the family Viverridae. The African palm civet ("Nandinia binotata") is genetically distinct and belongs in its own monotypic family, Nandiniidae. Civets are also called "toddycats" in English, "Luwak" in Bahasa Indonesian and "musang" in Malay. The latter may lead to some confusion among Malay speakers and non-speakers alike as the indigenous word "musang" has been mistakenly appropriated to foxes by certain printed media over the years instead