How are cat poop coffee and decaffeinated coffee made? Four reasons for coffee

What are the basic categories of coffee?

Big-fruit coffee, also known as Liberian coffee and Liberica coffee, is a variety that is resistant to pests and suitable for hot and humid climates. Its berries and seeds are nearly twice as large as those of small-fruit coffee. It has a strong aroma but a light taste. Generally, Nordic people prefer this type of coffee. It is mainly grown in Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, and Madagascar in Africa.

The berries of medium-fruit coffee are larger than those of small-fruit coffee but smaller than those of large-fruit coffee. They are resistant to diseases and are suitable for growing in tropical climates below 700 meters above sea level. They have a high caffeine concentration of about 2%-4%, but have a bitter taste of burnt rubber. They are mainly grown in some tropical countries such as Indonesia, India, Uganda and Vietnam, and most of them are used as instant coffee.

Arabica coffee, also known as Arabica coffee, is a species of the Rubiaceae family (Rubiaceae) coffee genus and is the most traditional coffee variety. It is native to East Africa. Before the 15th century AD, coffee was monopolized by the Arab world for a long time, so it was called "Arabic coffee" by Europeans.

Originally, all commercial coffee in the world was Coffea arabica. It was not until the end of the 19th century, when a large-scale disease occurred, that growers began to look for other disease-resistant varieties. However, Coffea arabica is still the most important coffee variety, accounting for about 3/4 of the world's total coffee production. It is mainly grown in Latin American countries, and some are also grown in Indonesia and the Pacific Islands.

What is Cat Poop Coffee?

In the early 18th century, the Dutch established coffee plantations in Sumatra and Java, Indonesia, and prohibited locals from picking and eating the coffee berries they planted. Indonesian locals accidentally discovered that civet cats love to eat these coffee berries and will excrete the beans intact when defecating.

The traditional reason why civet coffee tastes so good is that "the coffee beans are eaten by civets and fermented in their stomachs before being shelled, which destroys the protein, produces short peptides and more free amino acids, and reduces the bitterness of the coffee. The excrement is the main raw material, and after being cleaned and roasted, it becomes civet coffee."

Objectively speaking, civets only choose the ripest and sweetest coffee beans to eat, which is a kind of natural selection. Secondly, locals have found that the coffee produced by these beans after fermentation in the cat's stomach is better than ordinary coffee. (Of course, some people don't like this kind of light coffee...)

The production of civet coffee is very small, so it is very expensive. Some farmers in Indonesia capture civets and feed them coffee beans to increase production. Civets are omnivorous animals. In addition to eating seeds, they also eat insects, snakes, birds, amphibians and reptiles. Therefore, the feces discharged by real wild civets will be mixed with various substances, so the flavor of this kind of civet coffee is naturally different from the most original and natural wild civet coffee.

What is elephant dung coffee?

Elephant dung coffee, also known as "black ivory" coffee beans, are "naturally extracted" from Asian elephants.

The process of producing elephant dung coffee is quite complicated. It uses Arabica coffee beans picked by local mountain tribe women as raw materials. The coffee beans are then mixed with bananas, sugar cane and other vegetarian foods commonly eaten by elephants and fed to elephants. This can give the coffee a unique earthy and fruity flavor that is relatively less bitter. After being thoroughly cleaned, the semi-finished coffee beans will be sent to Bangkok and finally roasted into finished products.

When elephants eat coffee beans, their stomach acid breaks down the protein in the beans during digestion. The bitterness of coffee mainly comes from the protein, and after the protein is broken down, the bitterness of coffee disappears. This principle is similar to that of cat poop coffee, except that elephants have larger stomachs, which are more conducive to digestion and decomposition.

It takes about 33 kilograms of fresh coffee berries to produce 1 kilogram of "elephant dung coffee". Because most of the coffee beans are chewed, broken or hidden in the grass eaten by elephants, it is difficult to extract them from elephant dung, so the price of elephant dung coffee is really expensive.

How decaffeinated coffee is made

Generally speaking, coffee beans contain caffeine, so when people see decaffeinated coffee on the market, they can't help but wonder how it is produced.

In fact, the "decaffeination" work is to soak the still green coffee beans, that is, the unroasted coffee beans, in water to dissolve the caffeine inside the beans, and then "wash out" the caffeine from the coffee beans.

The most common way to wash out caffeine is the Swiss water washing method. First, the water-soluble components other than caffeine in the green beans are fully dissolved in water until saturated, and then the green coffee beans are soaked in the treated water. Therefore, even amino acids, sugars, chlorogenic acid, etc. that are easily soluble in water will no longer be dissolved in water because they are saturated. At the same time, caffeine is also released through repeated dissolution.

Moreover, the water that has dissolved caffeine can be filtered through activated carbon to remove the caffeine and can be used again. This is relatively environmentally friendly and will not damage the ingredients of the raw beans.

However, there may still be a small amount of caffeine in decaf coffee, with a typical 8-ounce cup of decaf coffee containing about 15 milligrams of caffeine, which is still very low compared to the 80 to 100 milligrams in regular coffee.