I am a nature lover. I love our world oldest Rainforest. I love blue sky, with singing birds and gentle blowing wind. I was on an ever searching for a career which suits my preference, my nature.
It was one night, middle of last year, I watched one brief documentary about Philippines kopi luwak on Singapore television broadcast. Immediate one very strong taught stroke me: if Philippines could do, given we are in very similar geographical area, Malaysia should also boleh to produce kopi luwak. From that time onwards, I was on my search journey for Malaysian kopi luwak.
In very short time I gathered much information about kopi luwak and its key figure: the civet cat. Exactly as what I had taught, the very same civet cat which present in Philippines and Indonesia, is also present in our Malaysian Rainforest.
Since then I filed in my application to rear civet cat to the government. As expected, much waiting and hassles needed to go through. After going through much hassle, I felt like a little boat at the middle of big ocean, with very unsure destiny. Given I was the lone searcher of kopi luwak in Malaysia, I was having very little confidence whether I could realize my kopi luwak dream. When I told my family members about my dream, all of them laughed at me.
One of my neighbor when saw I put some coffee seedling in my home, very heartfully she advised my mother not to plant coffee. Her bitter experience of planting coffee 20 years ago taught her coffee given her very little return but mountainous labor needed.
Then finally, after much effort, I saw some light at the end of tunnel for my civet cat rearing application. Fortunately, it was not a locomotive, but a real hard approval for rearing civet cat. One government official told me I was the first person applying to rear civet cat.
However, even though I am a trained agriculture man, I am big amateur for brewing fine coffee. Apparently I needed to find a partner, a coffee brewing specialist to work with. Then through report on Oriental Daily, I found Typica Café, Sum Leong and Ai Yi. Their great passion on fine coffee gave me deep impression. Immediately we agreed to develop kopi luwak together.
Then I started to rear civet cat, and looking for near extinction Malaysian coffee farm, to get ripen coffee berries to feed my civet cats. During our search, we were very sad that the sun of Malaysian coffee farms is going to set soon. More and more farmers are chopping their coffee trees with exactly the same reasons given by my neighbor. In Banting especially, an area previously occupied with many coffee farms, coffee trees are near extinction, giving way to more profitable oil palm.
