The movement against kopi luwak just picked up a powerful new ally: Oliver Milman, a Melbourne-based journalist writing for UK giants The Guardian. This article published today and written by Mr. Milman amounts to a powerful indictment of kopi luwak and the practices used to obtain it. This feature pulls no punches in its denouncement of kopi luwak, from the headline – “World’s most expensive coffee tainted by ‘horrific’ civet abuse” – to the lede before the opening paragraph – “Asian palm civets are force-fed a debilitating diet of coffee berries to create Kopi Luwak, say animal welfare groups” – to the devastating photographs of caged, abused civets (see above). This is a powerful piece of mainstream journalism, and may well help to turn the tide against kopi luwak’s creeping popularity and social acceptance as a “luxury” item.
[Kopi luwak's] high-end pricing and idiosyncratic origin mask the grim reality of the coffee’s production, which has morphed from a casual cottage industry for rural Indonesians to intensive farming.
The Guardian visited a coffee shop in Medan, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where a female civet was kept in a cramped cage at ...