Kopi Luwak Indies islands of Java and Sumatra, including Arabica coffee introduced from Yemen. During the era of "Cultuurstelsel" (1830–70), the Dutch prohibited the native farmers and plantation workers from picking coffee fruits for their own use. Still, the native farmers wanted to have a taste of the famed coffee beverage. Soon, the natives learned that certain species of "musang" or "luwak" (Asian palm civet) consumed the coffee fruits, yet they left the coffee seeds undigested in their droppings. The natives collected these luwaks' coffee seed droppings, then cleaned, roasted and ground them to make their own coffee beverage. The fame of
Kopi Luwak has two farms with 200 (in Davao City) and 100 (Iligan City) wild civets. But the archipelago of Indonesia where the famous "kopi luwak" was first discovered and produced is leading in supplying the world market for almost three centuries, where many small-scale civet farms are proliferating in the countryside. Several studies have examined the process in which the animal's stomach acids and enzymes digest the beans' covering and ferment the beans. Research by food scientist Massimo Marcone at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada showed that the civet's endogenous digestive secretions seep into the beans. These secretions carry