Kopi Luwak Baturiti — Restaurant in Bali

We were taken here on a tour of the area under the guise of it being a “coffee plantation”. Anyone with animal welfare concerns should avoid.

It is actually a very scretchy luwak (civet cat) tasting.

They have a civet cat which they claim is wild and “goes away in the night”. The animal is perched on a small stand, pacing, seeming stressed and with its own poo around it. Mysteriously, the animal does not leave, despite it being unconfined and seemingly free to do so. When asked the owners of the business claimed the cat is “blind in the day” as it is nocturnal so does not leave until the evening. They smile through other questions. First big red flag - this is total nonsense, civet cats are nocturnal but are perfectly able to see in the day time.

A closer look will explain the truth. As others on here have reported, the animal has had its feet mutilated. This would explain its lack of compunction to jump down and leave! My partner confirmed she saw this or rather that this feet looked weird and set her suspicions off but she did not want to say this out loud in front of the business owner.

By this time we were convinced their claims to be ethical (they claimed to hand harvest the coffee from drippings) were bullshit.

There were other signs this business is not what it claims. The coffee was extremely old, kept in squalid conditions and I am pretty certain not produced on site despite their small rostery setup. I think this is for show as no one is manning it until you arrive.

The tasting they give is with regular coffee of different flavours. The coffee was terrible - dank and old. This tasting was free and thankfully as we had heard of the mistreatment of the animals prior to our visit we were spooked enough to decline the paid for civet cat coffee or to purchase anything from the shop. We left quickly and politely and so we avoided funding a cruel practise.

To be clear we did not see caged animals but why lie about the blindness? We did hear the sounds of animals screaming but (to avoid being alarmist or misrepresenting) thought and hoped they were pigs.

In my view this business is a tourist trap which probably imports bad quality coffee at best. At worst it is an animal welfare horror show.

I would turn your driver down if you are offered...

I'm so surprised at the high ratings for this place?? Are these reviews written by the tour guides getting commission for taking you there? Like most, we were 'persuaded' to stop off here even though it wasn't on our itinerary. It all felt quite fake from the start, with a woman taking us through a small patch of ground to show the different types of coffee/tea plants, but she couldn't tell me where their actual plantations were. Then you arrive at the little hut with another woman pretending to grind and make the coffee - just one woman, all on her own. She must be super-human! The coffee/tea tasting was actually quite nice - and where you sit to do this has lovely views. But it's all hard sell, and you don't get out without a trip to the shop for over-priced products. BUT - all of this I couldn't really care less about. The reason I would ask people to NEVER visit this place is the cruelty to the animals. We did only see one Civet cat (but then again, how many do you need for a fake plantation?!) who was being kept on a small table high enough that it couldn't jump off. It was clearly distressed, desperately trying to get down but knew it couldn't jump and had to keep backing off. Honestly, the table top was less than a metre squared, though it did at least have a bowl of water on there too. When I asked why it was kept there, the host said they let it down at around 6pm to go and eat the coffee beans. So it is on that table top all day??? I suspect the poor cat is merely for show, but even worse, it had also been de-clawed. I can't tell you how sad it was to see an animal so clearly upset, and thinking how it will live like that until it dies. Please don't encourage the disgusting treatment of civet cats just to make a buck at the expense...

It’s a scam. Our driver asked whether we like to stop for coffee. We said yes as we also wanted to have some coffee before our long drive. We didn’t have much time. We were expecting to spend around 30mins to have a coffee in a cafe. He stopped at this place we had no idea it’s a coffee tasting spot. Once we got down the vehicle, a lady rushed us in. Started explaining the variety of coffee and process. We were a bit confused and told her we don’t have much time for it. Then she took us to the table and bought teas and coffee for tasting. This is the first time we tasted Luwak coffee so can’t comment on the quality of it. Most teas were super sweet. It had sugar stacked in the bottom. When we are done she said 60k for the luwak coffee and for the tasting we should pay a tip. We gave her a 20k she insisted and asked 50k. I told that’s too much and we can give only 20k. She got it and took us to the cashier and been pushing us to buy coffee from the store. We were already upset and didn’t even bother to check the prices. Just paid and got out. We asked for the bathroom and she took us to the parking and showed a toilet which looked too bad from outside. So I didn’t want to use it and just got back to the vehicle. It looked like a scam connection between the place and the...