Traditional House Compound

A traditional Balinese home is a grouping of several, largely open structures. There are separate structures for the kitchen, sleeping areas, bathing areas and shrine. The buildings are surrounded by a high-walled garden.

Most traditionally built, vernacular homes of Indonesia possess a number of similar features. They are of timber construction, post and beam construction that carries the load into the ground, and have a variety of elaborate roof shapes. Houses are the center of mystical rites, religious and social activities, cultural laws, and customs that maintain the villagers’ unity. As in many societies, the house is the focal point of family and community.

A Balinese home, like other traditional Indonesian homes, is not designed by an architect. Members of the village help each other to build their own homes. Occasionally a community will pool resources in order to build a structure with guidance from a master carpenter.

The structural system is normally post and beam and lintel. Bamboo or wood is used for walls that are not load bearing. Instead of nails, they use mortis and tenon joints held together by wooden pegs. Natural materials such as bamboo and thatch fiber are used.

Pilings are typically hardwood and a combination of soft- and hard-wood is used in the house’s upper where the walls are non-load bearing. These are frequently constructed with lighter wood or thatch. The thatch may be coconut, dried grass, sugar-palm leaves, and rice straw.

Traditional dwellings evolved to accommodate the climate, especially for Indonesia’s hot and wet monsoon. A typical Indonesian traditional vernacular home is built on stilts but not as much for a Balinese home.

A raised floor permits breeze to alleviate the tropical temperatures, keeps occupants, food and stored items from moisture and dampness, and keep living quarters above the malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Hardwood piles are less affected by termites and dry rot.

The basic style is derived from Javanese, in particular the roof, but the doors are European style. Javanese and Balinese home architecture is possibly the most European influenced of Indonesian style.

A large roof, often saddle-shaped, is supported separately by strong piles and with a steep pitch to shed tropical rain downpours. Broad overhanging eaves protect the house from water and direct sun. On the humid and hot coast, homes might have several windows to provide better cross-ventilation.

Cultivars, blends, and tastes

Kopi luwak is a name for many specific cultivars and blends of arabica, robusta, liberica, excelsa or other beans eaten by civets, hence the taste can vary greatly. Nonetheless, kopi luwak coffees have a shared aroma profile and flavor characteristics, along with their lack of bitterness.
Kopi luwak tastes unlike heavy roasted coffees, since roasting levels range only from cinnamon color to medium, with little or no caramelization of sugars within the beans as happens with heavy roasting. Moreover, kopi luwaks which have very smooth profiles are most often given a lighter roast. Iced kopi luwak brews may bring out some flavors not found in other coffees.
Sumatra is the world's largest regional producer of kopi luwak. Sumatran civet coffee beans are mostly an early arabica variety cultivated in the Indonesian archipelago

WHAT IS COFFEE LUWAK

Kopi luwak (Malay pronunciation: [ˈkopi ˈlu.aʔ]), or civet coffee, is one of the world's most expensive and low-production coffee. It is made from the beans of coffee berries which have been eaten by the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) and other related civets, then passed through its digestive tract.[1] A civet eats the berries for their fleshy pulp. In its stomach, proteolytic enzymes seep into the beans, making shorter peptides and more free amino acids. Passing through a civet's intestines the beans are then defecated, keeping their shape. After gathering, thorough washing, sun drying, light roasting and brewing, these beans yield an aromatic coffee with much less bitterness, widely noted as the most expensive coffee in the world.
Kopi luwak is produced mainly on the islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago, and also in the Philippines (where the product is called motit coffee in the Cordillera and kape alamid in Tagalog areas) and also in East Timor (where it is called kafé-laku). Weasel coffee is a loose English translation of its name cà phê Chồn in Vietnam, where popular, chemically simulated versions are also produced.

coffee luwak bali

HISTORY
The origin of Kopi Luwak is closely connected with the history of Coffee production in Indonesia. In early 18th century The Dutch established the cash-crop plantations in their colony in Dutch East Indies islands of Java and Sumatra, including Arabica coffee introduced from Yemen. During the era of Cultuurstelsel (1830—1870), the Dutch prohibited the native farmers and native plantation workers to pick coffee fruits for their own use. Yet the native farmers desired to have a taste of the famed coffee beverage. Soon the natives learned that certain species of musang or luwak (Asian Palm Civet) consumed these coffee fruits, yet they left the coffee seeds undigested in their droppings. The natives collect these Luwak's dropping coffee seeds; clean, roast and grind it to make coffee beverage.^[2] The fame of aromatic civet coffee spread from locals to Dutch plantation owners and soon become their favorites, yet because of its rarity and unusual process, the civet coffee was expensive even in colonial times.