The term "gourmet coffee" takes on a whole new meaning when it comes to civet coffee. One of the civets, the Asian Palm Civet, is responsible for the production of Kape Alamid in the Batangas province of the Philippines. One of my wife's aunts has lived in that province for most of her life, so I interrogated her about it. Alamid is the Tagalog language translation of Asian Palm Civet.

Civet Coffee in Other Places

The Asian Palm Civet is native to more countries than I can list. I will however, list a few of them and prices of the coffee (if available) originating from those regions:

• kopi luwak – Malaysia – USD $100 to $600 per pound.
• cà phê Chồn (loosely translated as weasel coffee – Vietnam – USD $3000 per pound.
• kape alamid – Philippines Tagalog areas, motit coffee in other areas.
• kafé-laku – East Timor

Finding what it's called and the prices in other places requires more research than I'm willing to conduct. Kopi muncak (or kopi muntjak) is made from the dung of barking deer (muntjac) and is not civet coffee, although the process in preparing the coffee is similar.

The Civet Coffee Process

If you take the time to think about it, you may never want to drink coffee brewed from civet coffee beans. Here's one of the processes:

The coffee berries are eaten by the civet for their fruit pulp only. After spending a couple of days being digested, the coffee beans are defecated in clumps. The coffee beans are undigested and still covered by some of the remains of the berries. The coffee farmers gather the feces, thoroughly wash the beans, sun dry the beans and then lightly roast them in order to maintain the flavors and the lack of bitterness.

During digestion, the civet's digestive secretions seep into the beans. The enzymes break down the proteins in the beans and produce shorter peptides and more free amino acids. The change in the proteins is what produces the unique flavors. The bitterness is lowered because the beans begin to germinate through malting.

Magic Cat Coffee

If you can't stomach (pun intended) the thought of consuming previously consumed coffee, a company by the name of CoffeePrimero uses a proprietary process to mimic how nature creates civet coffee and sells it for a much more reasonable price – USD $15.99 or less. Their flagship line of coffee, which is produced using this process, is called "Magic Cat".

This isn't some made-up process. It was developed by researchers at the University of Florida and it doesn't involve any animals at all. I have no way of knowing, of course, but I'm willing to bet that the researchers were either paid for the process or are receiving licensing royalties from the sales.

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Before I say anything else, I'm going to let you know that I really like chocolate-covered coffee beans. Unfortunately, chocolate-covered coffee beans don't like me at all. I'll tell you my story in a minute.

About Chocolate-Covered Coffee Beans

The name of this blog is "Coffee, Tea and Me". When I chose the name, I used a modified version of a popular phrase of the 1970s: "Coffee, tea or me?" Afterwards, I realized there are shops in shopping malls and other places named similarly that specialize in various coffee and tea products.

I haven't seen a shop like that in years, but then again, I haven't been looking for any. That's where I bought some chocolate-coverhttp://www.coffeettp://coffeeteablog.com/coffee-bean-fountains-by-nescafe/">coffee beans in 1996. They kind of look like another popular candy, "M&Ms". Other than the flavor of coffee, you might mistake them for one of the specialized versions of M&Ms, like when they use almonds instead of peanuts.

Acid Reflux and Me

After a co-worker offered me a couple of chocolate-covered coffee beans that he'd bought (at the same place I bought them), I bought a batch myself. While I was at work the next day, I ate about eight of them, forgetting what they were (mistaking them for M&Ms, naturally). You can call me an idiot anytime you like. Anyway, heartburn hit me like a ton of bricks. I needed heartburn relief and I needed it fast. I went to a doctor and it was then that I found out that I had acid reflux disease.

I suffered from chronic heartburn for years, but I didn't know that I also had acid reflux disease for years. It all but destroyed my teeth, occurring mostly when I slept. In 2005, a friend suggested I use vinegar for heartburn. I was skeptical, but I tried it and it worked. I've only had to use vinegar once since then, in 2006, and haven't had any reoccurring bouts of heartburn since. No heartburn of any kind, in fact, and I think that's amazing.

Heartburn Risks

I love coffee (hot or cold), coffee-flavored candies, coffee cake, chocolate-covered coffee beans and just about anything you can think of that has coffee in it or tastes like coffee. When it comes to chocolate-covered coffee beans, however, I'm afraid I'll probably never touch them again. Nothing else has ever triggered heartburn like that — not before the incident and not since.

As much as I love coffee products, I'd rather be heartburn-free than enjoy even a minute's pleasure with chocolate-covered coffee beans. Believe it or not, I haven't suffered from one bout of heartburn since April or May of 2006 (and it was very mild heartburn).

On second thought, if I can even find chocolate-covered coffee beans locally, I might try a couple just to see if my acid reflux problem is a thing of the past.

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I normally don't recycle pictures to use on multiple articles, but I really have to make an exception when it comes to coffee beans. There only so many ways to present them and hunting down new photographs is a chore in itself. Anyway, that's obviously not what this article is about. No, I just wanted to throw out some things about coffee beans that some people aren't aware of.

Coffee Beans are NOT Beans

When my 23-year old son doesn't know that coffee beans aren't really beans, it's time to mention it over and over again and as often as possible. People who aren't familiar with the history of the coffee plants, especially young people, take way too much for granted by the way things are called. Coffee beans start out as berries of the coffee plants. They're then dried and the seeds, the part that people call the beans, are removed and dried before heading off on their next stop in the journey from the plant to your stomach.

Roasted Coffee Beans

From what I've seen, most coffee beans sold AS coffee beans in supermarkets and other such places are roasted beforehand. What I mean to say is that you usually can't find coffee beans that haven't been roasted yet. I know raw coffee beans are available; otherwise coffee roasters wouldn't be available to the general public.

I don't trust my cooking skills, much less any kind of roasting skills. I could screw up barbecued hot dogs. No, I will always leave that step of the process to others.

Coffee Grounds

I really don't have any idea why ground coffee is called "coffee grounds". I guess it was coined by some unimaginative person way back when. I would call it coffee flakes or coffee powder (I've actually heard "coffee powder" used and it's even displayed as such on instant coffee labels), but never coffee grounds.

In most supermarkets, heck even in most supermarkets in the Philippines (where I live — no, I'm not a Filipino before anyone asks me yet again), you can buy coffee beans that only need to be ground up to be used. Usually, one or more coffee grinders are available nearby, including generic bags to put the results in.

Although coffee grinders are available for home use, it's still another area step in the process that I'll gladly leave to someone else. I won't use a coffee grinder to grind coffee beans at the market and I won't grind them at home. It's just way too easy to get coffee that only needs one step from the container to the cup and I'm basically a lazy person when it comes to doing things for myself.

There is a specialty coffee bean that I can't seem to find here in the Philippines, that I'm really fond of, but I'm not going to mention it yet. I'll save that for my next article. After reading all that I wrote above, can you guess what I'm going to be writing about? Hint: They're sold at places that have the same title as this blog (or a slight variation of using "or" instead of "and").

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