Mandailing coffee_2

The rarest beverage on earth

April 18, 2008

The Mandailing Province of West Sumatra’s highlands has been hailed as one of the world’s premium coffee growing regions since the Dutch East Indies Trading Company began their plantations during the 17th Century.

The strains of Arabica grown in this region produced such exceptional coffee, that it gave the Dutch a total monopoly on the global coffee trade for over 200 years. Prized throughout Europe, this strong, black, rich, sweet coffee — Kopi Jawa, or Java, was then lost to the world and thought to be extinct due to the dissolution of the Dutch East Indies Trading Company, numerous local political struggles, the Leaf Rust plague of the 1880’s and eventually WWII. The plantations and the coffee trees were literally swallowed and strangled by the jungle.

In 1999, on the highest ridges of Mandailing Estate, a few original rare Typica Cultivar Arabica were discovered. A handful of ancient Arabica trees which had grown to giant proportions over centuries - alive and flourishing in the jungle: thought to be extinct — the last of their kind.

Since their rediscovery, they have been painstakingly replanted and now the legend of Mandailing Estate single origin Arabica Coffee has been reborn.

But this time they have a little friend!

Mandailing Estate is one of the most remote and untouched regions of Sumatra. The rainforest jungle is teeming with life… gibbons, tigers and luwaks. Luwak is the Indonesian word for Civet Cat. It’s a native to the highlands of Java and Sumatra and a relative to the Indian mongoose - famous for its lightning fast reflexes and ability to kill cobras and other snakes.

Pronounced siv-it, the civet is a furry mammal resembling a long (13-38 inches; 33-97centimetres), slender cat, with a more pointed snout, a fluffier tail, and shorter legs.

Lucky for the Civets, the Dutch decided to grow coffee in its backyard, because the civet cats took an instant liking to eating coffee cherries and they are famously finicky, only eating the ripest and most perfect cherry. They are known to investigate an entire coffee bush and eat only one cherry, only bothering to eat the berries that are perfectly ripened, with just the right amount of water content and acidity in the parchment.

When the civet cat digests and processes the cherry, its gastric juices and enzymes change proteins within the bean thereby resulting in the most perfectly processed coffee on earth. A gastric process unique to the civet!

While others have attempted to reproduce this effect with caged civets, Mandailing Estate offers the truest and wildest Kopi Luwak available — The rarest beverage on earth: the most complete single origin available.a

For more information contact:

accounts@mandailingestate.com.au

www.mandailingestate.com.au

http://www.foodmag.com.au/news/the-rarest-beverage-on-earth

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