Asian palm civet digestive juices enter into the beans and modify the micro-structural properties of these beans. Proteolytic enzymes cause substantial breakdown of storage proteins. Kopi Luwak is traditionally made from the faeces of wild civets, however, due to it becoming a trendy drink, civets are being increasingly captured from the wild and fed coffee beans to mass-produce this blend. Many of these civets are housed in battery cage systems which have been criticised on animal welfare grounds. The impact of the demand for this fashionable coffee on wild palm civet populations is yet unknown but may constitute a significant threat. In Indonesia,
Coffee 2013, "The Seattle Times" reported that global coffee prices dropped more than 50 percent year-over-year. The downward trend continued, and in September 2018 coffee futures dropped to a 12-year low, below the cost of production for many farmers in mountainous regions who cannot use mechanized harvesting methods. In Thailand, black ivory coffee beans are fed to elephants whose digestive enzymes reduce the bitter taste of beans collected from dung. These beans sell for up to $1,100 a kilogram ($500 per lb), achieving the world's most expensive coffee some three times costlier than beans harvested from the dung of Asian palm