Although not as popular as Arabica and Robusta, other varietals of coffee also exist. These include Kape Barako or Kape Baraco, (English: Barako coffee), a Liberica, varietal grown in the Philippines, particularly in the provinces of Batangas and Cavite. (Wikipedia web site)
Actually Kape Alamid and Kopi Luwak is the same thing. Kape Alamid is Mindanao Civet Coffee that comes only from the finest ripe, organically grown, coffee cherries of Mindanao’s forests. The civet here is called alamid.
During the coffee season (November – March), farmers collect civet droppings and extract the beans by carefully washing and cleaning them before drying. After drying, the farmers bring the clean beans to MinLand Foundation. MinLand subjects the beans to quality control measures and testing like size sorting, moisture content evaluation and random physical checks for consistency and authenticity. MinLand then washes and dries the beans further.
When the beans are dry enough, the outer covering of the bean is physically removed. Beans are roasted and packed thereafter. The coffee finally undergoes disinfection through Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation to destroy pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, mold, and mildew.
Kape Alamid is strong and naturally sweet when roasted. It gives off a sweet chocolatey aroma that rouses the senses. Noted as the "rarest coffee in the world" the commodity sold by Japan Airlines as a gourmet product on its business class section for 600 dollars for 100 grams and is exported under the Coffee Alamid trademark to China, Taiwan, Australia and the United States. (taken from MinLand Foundation and Squidoo web pages)
Kopi Luwak is considered one of the finest coffees available. The majority of commercial Indonesian Kopi Luwak (civet coffee) is from Java and Sumatra or Sulawesi, and made from Robusta beans.
Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee, and luwak is a local name of the Asian Palm Civet. Kopi Luwak or Civet coffee is coffee made from coffee berries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The civets eat the berries, but the beans inside pass through their system undigested. This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago, and in the Philippines (where the product is called Kape Alamid). Vietnam has a similar type of coffee, called weasel coffee, which are coffee berries which have been defecated by local weasels. In actuality the "weasel" is just the local version of the Asian Palm Civet, which is related to the cat but belonging to the viverridae family, the same as the mongoose, it has a weasel-like face, cat-like body and long tail with fur which may be either gray or brown with various darker markings.
The Asian Palm civet of Indonesia is a musky grey-toned colour with darker stripes.
Beneath the tail of both sexes is a gland from which a fatty secretion is emitted to mark its territory. This substance is collected to be used as a perfume fixative, main supplies coming
from the Indian civet (v. zibetha).
The omnivorous, tree-climbing civet cat prowls the coffee plantations at night picking and consuming the finest and best ripe coffee cherries. These pass through the civet and are
collected in the droppings. Beans emerge without their fleshy coating, but entire and appear undigested. They are extracted by washing and carefully cleansed before being processed.
It had long been considered as a legend that the civet (Luwak) consumed the best coffee beans which then passed through their gut undigested, even entire with their cherry-like coating, the beans being washed and processed in the normal fashion to make this highly selected top grade coffee. Some thought that the actual situation was that the best beans were selected according to the type civets would eat, and these processed without having actually been eaten by the civet cats.
Kopi Luwak is the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $120 and $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and the United States. It is increasingly becoming available elsewhere, though supplies are limited: only 1,000 pounds (450 kg) at most make it into the world market each year (Pg 23, The Gospel According to Starbucks; Sweet). One small cafe, the Heritage Tea Rooms, in the hills outside Townsville in Queensland, Australia has Kopi Luwak coffee on the menu at A$50.00 (=US$46.00) per cup, and approximately 4 people a week are up for it, which has gained nationwide Australian press. (taken from Wikipedia web site and other sources)
Coffea canephora (robusta) is a species of coffee which has its origins in western Africa. It is grown mostly in Africa and Brazil, where it is often called Conillon. It is also grown in Southeast Asia where French colonists introduced the crop to Vietnam in the late 19th century and has now surpassed Brazil to become the world's largest exporter. It is easier to care for than Coffea arabica and hence is cheaper to produce.
Coffea canephora was not classified as a species of Coffea until about a hundred years after Coffea arabica in the 18th century, but grew indigenously in Western and Central Africa. The plant has a shallow root system and grows as a robust tree or shrub to about 10 metres. It flowers irregularly taking about 10 - 11 months for cherries to ripen, producing oval shaped beans. The Robusta plant has a greater crop yield than that of Arabica and is less susceptible to pest and disease, but is said to a have a taste more bitter than Arabica
Since arabica beans are considered superior, robusta is usually limited to lower grade coffee blends as a filler. It is however included in instant coffee, and in espresso blends to promote the formation of crema. Robusta has about twice the amount of caffeine compared to arabica. Approximately one third of the coffee produced in the world is robusta.
Whilst not separate varieties of bean, unusual and very expensive robustas are the Indonesian Kopi Luwak and the Philippine Kape Alamid.
Coffea arabica is a species of coffee indigenous to Ethiopia and Yemen. It is also known as the coffee shrub of Arabia, mountain coffee, or arabica coffee. Coffea arabica is believed to be the first species of coffee to be cultivated, being grown in southwest Arabia for well over 1,000 years. It is considered to produce better coffee than the other major commercially grown coffee species, Coffea canephora (robusta). Arabica contains less caffeine than any other commercially cultivated species of coffee. Wild plants grow to between 7-12 m tall, and have an open branching system; the leaves are opposite, simple elliptic-ovate to oblong, 6-12 cm long and 4-8 cm broad, glossy dark green. The flowers are white, 10-15 mm in diameter and grow in axillary clusters. The fruit is a berry 10-15 mm in diameter, maturing bright red to purple and typically contain two seeds (the coffee 'bean').
Coffea arabica takes about seven years to mature fully and does best with 1-1.5 meters (about 40-59 inches) of rain, evenly distributed throughout the year. It is usually cultivated between 1,300 and 1,500 m altitude, but there are plantations as low as sea level and as high as 2,800 m. The plant can tolerate low temperatures, but not frost, and it does best when the temperature hovers around 20 °C (68 °F). Commercial cultivars mostly only grow to about 5 m, and are frequently trimmed as low as 2 m to facilitate harvesting. Unlike Coffea canephora (robusta), Coffea arabica prefers to be grown in light shade.
The trees are difficult to cultivate and each tree can produce anywhere from 0.5-5 kg of dried beans, depending on the tree's individual character and the climate that season. In perfect conditions, like those of Java, trees are planted at all times of the year and are harvested year round. In less ideal conditions, like those in parts of Brazil, the trees have a season and are harvested only in winter. The berries themselves are edible. They are very sweet, with a texture somewhat like a grape. The real prize of this cash crop are the beans inside. Each berry holds two locules containing the beans. The coffee beans are actually two seeds within the fruit, there is sometimes a third seed or one seed, a peaberry in the fruits at tips of the branches. These seeds are covered in two membranes, the outer one is called the 'parchment' and the inner one is called the 'silver skin'.
There are some varietals of coffee depending on the local environment where the coffee plants are grown, their method of process, and the genetic subspecies or varietals. Two well known varietals are Coffea Arabica and Coffea Canephora (Robusta), but there is also another varietals such as Coffea Liberica which is grown in the Philippines, particularly in the provinces of Batangas and Cavite.
COFFEA ARABICA
COFFEA ROBUSTA
KOPI LUWAK
KAPE ALAMID
COFFEA LIBERICA
Beside those benefits, coffee drinkers may also have risks such as:
· Cosmetic
Coffee causes staining of the teeth, just like tea.
· Cholesterol
Coffee brewed using a French press method contains oils (cafestol and kahweol) otherwise trapped by more commonly used paper filters. In two short-term studies, these oils are thought to have raised LDL cholesterol levels by 10 percent. The risk is not present in paper filtered coffee.
Coffee made by the Scandinavian method of boiling or by the cafetiere method may cause mild elevation of plasma cholesterol concentration in some people but instant and filter coffee have no such effects. Although coffee elevates plasma homocysteine levels this effect is not large enough to have a significant effect on the risk of heart disease.
· Blood Pressure
A recent study by Harvard Med that set out to prove that the caffeine in coffee would put people at risk for high blood pressure ended up rejecting the hypothesis. 155,000 nurses were followed for 12 years and the results showed that large amounts of coffee did not induce a "risky rise in blood pressure”. As a note, this study did not include men.
In some sensitive individuals, ingestion of coffee after a period of abstinence may cause a temporary rise in blood pressure but there is no persistent hypertensive effect in the long term.
· Effects on Pregnancy
A February 2003 Danish study of 18,478 women linked heavy coffee consumption during pregnancy to significantly increased risk of stillbirths (but no significantly increased risk of infant death in the first year). "The results seem to indicate a threshold effect around four to seven cups per day," the study reported. Those who drank eight or more cups a day (64
Decaffeinated coffee is occasionally regarded as a potential health risk to pregnant women, due to the high incidence of chemical solvents used to extract the caffeine. These concerns have almost no basis, however, as the solvents in question evaporate at 80–90 °C, and coffee beans are decaffeinated before roasting, which occurs at approximately 200 °C. As such, these chemicals, namely trichloroethane and methylene chloride, are present in trace amounts at most, and neither pose a significant threat to unborn children.
In the
