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
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