The Civet Cat

Suan Lahu is home to wild civet cats, known in Lahu language as pawi, who inhabit the forests surrounding the farm. Civets, who love fresh coffee, feed on the farm's organically cultivated coffee berries and inadvertently serve as intermediaries for the production of a rare type of coffee bean, most commonly know as Kopi Luwak.

Because the pawi has discriminating taste, it chooses the sweetest, ripest coffee cherries to eat. The pulp of the berries is digested while the beans, covered in their natural parchment casing, remain whole.

The process of passing through the digestive track of the forest animal alters the characteristics of the beans. The enzymes in the civet’s stomach give them a rich and distinctive taste.  The civet has the cat-like trait of returning to the same spot to defecate so these parchment-covered beans are deposited and naturally collected in the repeatedly used latrine holes around our farm. We have two uses for the coffee beans left in these holes: one is to offer customers a rare delicacy, and the other is to gather the seedlings that sprout.

To process our Pawi coffee we collect the parchment, wash it thoroughly,  sun dry it and then give it a lighter roasting to enhance its exceptional flavor. Jacques Op De Laak, an international coffee expert from the Netherlands living in Chiang Mai, describes the taste of the Pawi coffee from Suan Lahu this way.

Pawi latrines are also prolific germination sites. When the monsoon rains begin, these small pits are thick with coffee young sprouts which we transplant to individual bags and place in our nursery. Eventually, when they are big enough, the small trees will be planted in the ground.

Having pawi inhabit the Suan Lahu farm is lucky. And it also increases our sense of responsibility and commitment. If this little forest animal chooses to bless us with its presence and cooperation, we must certainly respond by protecting it, and safeguarding its habitat. To be committed to our objective to preserve both the nature and the culture of the environment surrounding Suan Lahu means heeding the guidance that the pawi offers us.

Coffee seedlings harvested from Civet latrines.