Kopi Luwak civets choose which cherries to eat – i.e. those that are most ripe and flawless. Digestive mechanisms may improve the flavor profile of the coffee beans that have been eaten. The civet eats the cherries for the fleshy pulp, then in the digestive tract, fermentation occurs. The civet's protease enzymes seep into the beans, making shorter peptides and more free amino acids. Early production began when beans were gathered in the wild from where a civet would defecate as a means to mark its territory. On farms, civets are either caged or allowed to roam within defined boundaries. Coffee berries
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