- Welcome to the Brave Brew House.
Today's site of the ultimate Coffee Battle Royale.
In my hands right here is a $100 bag
of the cat poop coffee.
One of these three cups is made from the Kopi Luwak.
You know what? That really smells like (dramatic music).
Bottoms up.
(dramatic music)
(upbeat music)
Coffee, my absolute favorite beverage on the planet.
Now, at this point, I would consider myself a bit
of a coffee connoisseur.
However, if you were to ask people on the crew,
they might call me more of a fanatic.
(cup scraping)
(upbeat music)
(porcelain clacking)
(Mark groaning)
- Mark did you yelp?
- Yeah, man (groans).
- [Corey] Please get the multi-tool.
- I'll take the coffee. Oh yeah.
(groans)
It's good.
So fanatic, connoisseur.
I'll let you be the judge.
So today we thought let's try the world's most exclusive
and expensive coffee known as Kopi Luwak.
But before we can indulge
and taste this incredibly rare roast
we need to learn a little bit more about the civet.
The Asian Palm Civet are viverrid native
to South and Southeast Asia.
You're probably asking yourself
what does the civet have to do with coffee?
Well, if you're not aware of what Kopi Luwak is,
to put it simply it's coffee made from civic poop.
Yeah, you heard that right?
The coffee cherries are first eaten by the Asian Palm Civet,
and then once partially digested and returned
to mother nature in a tiny little bundle,
are harvested from the civet's poop by local farmers.
Now that's a dirty job.
They're then roasted, packaged and sold for consumption.
One of the theories behind why Kopi Luwak
allegedly tastes so good is that the Asian Palm Civets
are picky about which coffee cherries they eat.
So basically they're only eating the best ones
thus providing farmers with a carefully selected assortment
of raw coffee beans.
All right, now that we've learned a little bit more
about the civet and how it plays its role in this process,
we wanted to dig a little bit deeper
and learn the dirty details
about what it takes to get Kopi Luwak into your cup.
So in order to do that, we've invited the owner
of Kaya Kopi to have a Zoom discussion with us.
But before we do, I think it's time for a quick snack right?
Oh yeah.
That's fresh.
(dramatic music)
(Corey groans)
What? It's just a Payday.
Chris, thank you so much for taking the time
to speak with us today.
Really excited to learn more
about your adventures in coffee.
- Absolutely. Thanks Mark.
Excited to be here.
I've always loved coffee and I actually ended up
moving to Vietnam in 2016 and I ended up living
with a woman actually, who was from Indonesia.
And one day she pulled out from like special coffee
and brewed it up.
I was like, "Oh, this is really good, really unique flavor.
Like, what is this?"
And she's like, well, "This is poop coffee."
I was like, "What!"
Kind of gave you the lowdown Kopi Luwak
and I started sending it to my friends so they could try.
And we eventually ended up teaming up to form Kaya Kopi.
- Wow there are some producers out there that
aren't doing it in an ethical way.
And that's something that you've identified
at what makes your brand special.
- Being able to you know meet the local farmers
and let the animals live a healthy life was something
we were excited to be a part of, you know,
and keep that tradition going.
- Awesome. Fingers crossed.
Hopefully I love the coffee later this afternoon.
(Chris laughing)
All right. It's time to cut the crap and get to brewing.
All right, here we are.
Welcome to the Brave Brew House.
Today's site of the ultimate coffee Battle Royale.
The blind tasting between the three contenders
in front of me here today.
To the right here is the one and only Folgers.
This stuff is about as common as we get.
And we wanted to have a standard blended coffee
in today's blind tasting as a control.
This stuff's pretty inexpensive,
runs about seven bucks a pound.
Now, if we move over one, we have Beca House Coffee.
This is their Sumatran blend
and it is considered a premium coffee.
Yet it only runs 11 bucks a pound.
So really excited to try this one.
Now in my hands right here is a $100 bag
of Kopi Luwak coffee from Kaya Kopi.
The bag that I'm holding is not even a full pound.
If we want it at equivalent per pound pricing,
you would be looking to spend $225
for a pound of Kopi Luwak from Kaya Kopi.
And we're here today to find out
if this rare variety of coffee is truly worth it.
It's time to brew up this cafe condudu
and in order to do that
we're gonna bring in a true coffee expert.
Somebody that you know pretty well
at this point, Director Corey, everybody.
- Hey Mark. - What's up, dude?
So we got to brew up these coffees
and I've heard that you're an expert.
- Yeah I actually used to be a barista and a coffee master
back in the day believe it or not, so...
- All right, man. Cool.
I'm gonna step back and let you do the honors.
- All right. Let's get into it then.
I got this.
(pack thwacks)
(bright music)
(beans rattling)
(grinder whirring)
(water sizzling)
(beans rattling)
(timer beeping)
(water sloshing)
(water boiling)
(coffee splurging)
(bright music)
All right Mark. You can come back in now.
- [Mark] Is it ready?
- It's ready.
- Oh buddy, man. It smells fantastic.
I'm excited to get to tasting.
- And I'd like to throw just a little twist
in there on this.
I want you to rank these first to last one through three.
Which one is your favorite?
Which one's your least favorite?
And the big twist is you got to drink
whichever one you like the best.
- Like the whole cup?
- Whole cup.
- Okay. So choose wisely then.
All right. Cool deal.
Thank you so much, Corey, for brewing up the coffee.
I'm excited to taste these and give them my honest opinion.
- Yeah man. Have at it.
- All right. Let's get into the blind tasting.
First let's talk about what a blind tasting is.
Blind tasting just means that I don't know which coffee
is which, so I'm gonna go into this blind.
And like we said before, one of these three cups
is made from the Kopi Luwak, the cat poop coffee.
I'm gonna try to sniff out which one it is.
So let's start with this one right here.
Of the three, I would say this is the medium color profile.
It is a, almost a dark chocolate milk color.
Aromawise, this one is awesome.
I mean, very sweet, like almost
like a pecan pie in sweetness.
All right. Going in for the taste.
This is remarkable.
A nice sweet sugariness to it,
but like you've got those caramels and chocolates
and this is going to be a high bar to clear.
I like that one a lot.
Now it's time for coffee number two. All right.
Got a little bit of a sediment layer on the top,
a floater if you will.
Let's get a waft of this, you know what?
That really smells like Shiitake mushrooms.
And I'm not even saying that for the pun.
It really smells like an earthy woody scent.
(coffee slurping)
Yeah, it tastes almost identical to the way it smells,
like very earthy, very, very mellow.
It's a little tart,
very neutral, very streamlined.
Very balanced.
Okay. Let's go on to cup number three.
Whoa. Okay bang, right away.
This coffee is strong.
It's almost hard to pick out anything
because it's such a like, bam hits you in the face scent.
Let's go for the taste.
Wow yeah. That is pure jet fuel.
This is the coffee you want for a late night of work
or you got to get up before dawn for a shoot.
This is the coffee that I'm going to choose.
So if I had to describe each of these as a music genre,
I would go with good classic oldies rock.
Love that, and listen to it every day.
Middle cup, more like a smooth jazz,
maybe some good tunes when it's raining outside
and want to relax.
That's what the middle cup is.
The last cup. That's heavy metal.
That's your Metallica.
That's your Pantera.
That's the screaming guitars and the loud, loud drums
that's gonna keep you up all night long.
Oh yeah okay now it's time to rate them.
I think I'm ready to do this.
Least favorite and not because it's necessarily bad
it's because I just don't like it
as much as the other two, I will go with the last cup.
This is a workhorse coffee.
This is a coffee I want to energize and power me through
those tough situations in the field.
I would drink that coffee
but it's not nearly as good as the other two.
Okay now for the tough decision, which is the best
of the first and second cup.
I think if you caught me on a different day,
I might reverse this decision.
But for today, my favorite cup
of coffee of the trio would be cup number one.
This is a very, very elegant
but high end cup of coffee.
It packs a punch, but it has tons of flavor.
And this is something I could easily drink
every single day of the year.
The middle cup was good.
It was very unique,
but this is just a little too mellow for my personality.
This is more like I said,
a little bit of smooth jazz or easy listening.
And I think I can guess the three.
I think this is actually gonna be pretty easy.
I'm gonna Folgers, Beca house,
and then the cat poop coffee itself.
The Kopi Luwak is in the middle.
How'd I do Corey? Is that about right?
- [Corey] Yeah Mark. You're spot on.
- Nailed it. All right.
Well, hey, a deal's a deal.
I will drink this full cup of coffee
'cos I selected it as my favorite.
But before I do that, the big question.
Do I feel that Kopi Luwak is worth $100 a bag?
I would say yes once (laughing).
I'm not sure I would buy this coffee on the regular
and it comes down to my personal preference of coffee,
and I do realize it's really expensive
and there's a reason for it.
It's because of how it's made.
The supply being limited, the demand being high.
So if you do want to try this coffee,
chip in with your friends,
make sure you buy it from a reputable producer
like Kaya Kopi.
Let me know what you think
if you have tried it, write in the comment section.
Tell me about your adventures in coffee.
I hope you guys enjoyed this one.
I'm Mark Vins.
Be brave. Stay caffeinated.
We'll see you on the next challenge.
All right guys, deal's a deal. Bottoms up.
(bright music)
If you enjoyed this video,
go over to the Mark Vins channel and subscribe,
so you don't miss any of the upcoming challenges.
And if you think poopoo coffee is ridiculous,
make sure to check out the encounter we had
with the mysterious bearcat
and learn all about it's popcorn scented urine.
Oh yeah. Seriously.
(bright music)
(animal roaring) (birds chirping)