Kopi Luwak profile. Vietnamese companies sell an imitation kopi luwak, made using an enzyme soak which they claim replicates the civet's digestive process. Imitation has several motivations. The high price of kopi luwak drives the search for a way to produce kopi luwak in large quantities. Kopi luwak production involves a great deal of labour, whether farmed or wild-gathered. The small production quantity and the labor involved in production contribute to the coffee's high cost. Imitation may be a response to the decrease in the civet population. Initially, civet coffee beans were picked from wild civet excrement found around coffee plantations. This
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