Trung Nguyên then passed through its digestive tract. After gathering, thorough washing, sun drying, light roasting, and brewing, these beans yield an aromatic coffee with much less bitterness. Trung Nguyên's Legendee brand coffee is a simulated kopi luwak product, which uses synthetic enzymes to mimic the civet's gastric acid, producing effects on flavour similar to actual kopi luwak, and reducing the need to rely on the civet, which is now endangered in Vietnam due to excessive hunting. In August 2010, Trung Nguyên CEO Dang Le Nguyen Vu reported that the company had begun manually producing its own natural (non-simulated) kopi luwak under
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