Over the years, the Kopi Luwak issue is raised occasionally, i.e. the pariah coffee: Yes, it's a novelty, but the cup quality of the mostly Robusta Kopi Luwak is very poor. From this, many customers have assumed we stood on firm moral high-ground and would never stoop so low as to offer animal-excreted coffee. AHA! Your were wrong! We like all the infantile poop jokes just as much as the next person! Truly, the main problem with the Luwak is the lousy cup, the ridiculous price, and (in recent years) my concern that people are actually forcing this poor little Civet Cat to eat the coffee. So here we have the South America antithesis: Jacu Bird coffee. This is something I had heard of on my travels, but the reality of stocking a small amount of this coffee only arose after conversations with one of our partners from Brazil. The Camocim and Atalaia Farms are populated with a native South American Jacu Bird. These indigenous creatures are vegetarians, inhabiting forested plantations (shade grown coffee areas) and feasting on the ripe coffee cherries: It is a natural selection process of quality coffee. The farm owner, Henrique Sloper wrote this, "As a supporter of the natural flora and fauna of the farm, Camocim welcomes the Jacu Bird as a member of the farm’s agro-florestal system. Rather that think of the Jacu Bird as a pest, eating our finest coffee cherries, we saw the opportunity to employ the Jacu Bird as one of our finest manual coffee pickers. Once ingested, the Jacu Bird, eliminates the digested beans which lie on the ground under the coffee trees. Our staff collects these odorless droppings, transports them to the drying areas where they are dried, cleaned and stored in their parchment for up to three months." Note his comment: the coffee comes out of the Jacu in parchment, not as hulled green bean. While Kopi Luwak cups like low grade industrial robusta, the Jacu Bird coffee has a good mild Brazil specialty-level cup. Understand me: I am not saying this has some crazy cup character; it is a nice cup resulting from a very unique, er, process. The dry fragrance has a soft nutty sweetness to it, while the wet aromatics has a bit of molasses and brown bread. There is a slight black pepper note in the finish. The body is fairly heavy; it's good natural Brazil coffee. This year is better than last, and we had the green coffee vacuum-packed at origin to assure the freshness and cup character. I will leave much of the jokes about this Jacu coffee to you, but one you CAN make about Kopi Luwak that you cannot make about our Jacu Bird coffee: it does NOT taste like crap. It is a nice, low-acid, mild, rustic cup.
