Golden Mandheling Coffee Bean Characteristics Flavor Differences Between Indonesian and Colombian Coffee Varieties

Whether in our physical store or on our Tmall flagship store, customers often ask FrontStreet Coffee how to choose coffee beans. Some customers are beginners just starting to explore specialty coffee, without clear understanding of the flavor profiles from different regions. Others are overwhelmed by the dazzling array of coffees—FrontStreet Coffee currently displays over 40 varieties of coffee beans, all sourced from various growing regions worldwide, each with its unique characteristics. Moreover, FrontStreet Coffee regularly introduces new coffee beans from different regions.

Among so many coffee beans, Mandheling coffee is one of the most well-known to Chinese consumers. But what about the history, culture, and stories behind Mandheling coffee? I wonder if everyone is familiar with these aspects too. Of course, besides Mandheling coffee, customers visiting FrontStreet Coffee often inquire about Colombian coffee as well. As the world's largest exporter of washed coffee beans, do you understand the characteristics of this coffee region? If you haven't yet gained sufficient knowledge, then this article from FrontStreet Coffee will help you understand all aspects of Mandheling and Colombian coffee.

Customers who come to FrontStreet Coffee don't just come for a cup of coffee, and FrontStreet Coffee doesn't just serve coffee—we're more about sharing the stories behind coffee. So now, let FrontStreet Coffee tell you the stories of Mandheling and Colombian coffee!

The Origin of Mandheling's Story

In the 17th century, the Dutch first introduced Arabica seedlings to Ceylon (today's Sri Lanka) and Indonesia. In 1877, a massive disaster struck the Indonesian islands. Coffee rust disease destroyed almost all coffee trees, forcing people to abandon the Arabica they had cultivated for years and introduce disease-resistant Robusta coffee trees from Africa. Today, Indonesia is a major coffee-producing country. Coffee is mainly grown in Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi, with Robusta varieties accounting for 90% of total production. Sumatran Mandheling, however, is the rare Arabica variety. These trees are planted on hillside slopes between 750 and 1,500 meters above sea level. The mysterious and unique Sumatran varieties give Mandheling coffee rich aroma, full-bodied texture, intense flavor, with slight chocolate and caramel notes.

Mandheling coffee beans are relatively large with hard bean texture, making them prone to defects during cultivation. After harvesting, they typically undergo strict manual sorting. If quality control isn't rigorous enough, it's easy to get inconsistent quality. Additionally, different roasting levels directly affect flavor, making it a controversial single-origin coffee.

The name Mandheling is quite different from other coffee beans—it's not a region, place name, port name, or even a coffee variety name (like Yirgacheffe or Sidamo, which are African region names). During World War II, when the battlefield spread from Europe to Asia, Indonesia, then a Dutch colony, was invaded by Japan in 1942 after the Netherlands declared war on Japan. Japanese troops landed on Sumatra island in February 1942. At that time, Japanese soldiers who already loved coffee discovered the charm of wet-hulled processed Mandheling coffee in northern Sumatra, becoming devoted fans ever since.

Even the origin story of Mandheling coffee's name is said to involve Japanese people, supposedly formed from a pronunciation misunderstanding. During WWII, a Japanese soldier accidentally drank a rich, mellow coffee at a local café. The soldier was amazed and asked the owner the coffee's name. Due to language barriers, the owner mistakenly thought the soldier was asking about his origin and replied "Mandailing." After the war, the Japanese soldier commissioned an Indonesian broker to ship 15 tons of the remembered "Mandheling coffee" to Japan, which became surprisingly popular. It could be said that this broker made Mandheling famous, and Mandheling made this broker the founder of today's renowned PWN Coffee Company (PWN).

This Indonesian coffee merchant is today the famous Pwani Coffee Company, abbreviated as PWN, and also the trademark owner of Golden Mandheling.

Mandheling Coffee

Mandheling is also known as "Sumatran Coffee." Most coffee produced in northern Sumatra is Gayo, mainly Ateng varieties. The Tawar Lake area in the northern part can be called Aceh coffee or Tawar Lake coffee. The Lintong area and Lake Toba region in southern Sumatra can be called Mandheling—Lintong is the actual Mandheling region. Mandheling comes from the mountainous area around Lake Toba, located north of Medan, the capital of Sumatra island. It's a high-altitude freshwater lake with an average elevation of about 900 meters. The mysterious and unique natural environment of Sumatra gives Mandheling coffee its characteristics: rich body, intense flavor, with subtle chocolate and herbal notes.

Mandheling coffee beans are relatively large with hard texture, making them prone to defects during cultivation. After harvesting, they require strict manual sorting; otherwise, quality can be inconsistent. Additionally, different roasting levels directly affect coffee flavor, making it a rather controversial single-origin coffee. The appearance of Mandheling coffee beans can be considered quite ugly among coffee beans, but as the saying goes, "don't judge a book by its cover." Mandheling coffee beans are mellow and smooth with a distinct sweet aftertaste.

Characteristics of Mandheling Coffee

Mandheling has rich flavor, sweet aroma, pure bitterness, and mellow body with a hint of sweetness. Since Mandheling coffee beans themselves don't have much acidic characteristic, they won't develop unpleasant sour or astringent notes even after prolonged heat retention or when brewed into iced coffee. After roasting, the coffee beans are relatively large, with green beans appearing brown or dark green and having a caramel-like special aroma. The flavor is mellow and rich. Most general coffee enthusiasts prefer to drink it as single-origin, but it's also an indispensable variety for blending coffee.

What are the Common Types of Mandheling?

Here, FrontStreet Coffee will introduce four types of Mandheling. They are Lintong Mandheling, Golden Mandheling, Tiger Mandheling, and Aged Mandheling. Below is a table with their relevant information:

FrontStreet Coffee Lintong Mandheling

Region: Lintong region
Elevation: 1100-1600m
Variety: Typica, Caturra
Processing: Wet-hulled

This is a premium Mandheling coffee bean from the Lintong area, with relatively large beans and hard texture. Indonesian coffee quality is quite diverse, but what we usually call Mandheling refers to Typica or its varieties grown in the mountainous area around Lake Toba. Coffee connoisseurs from around the world have commented: "Sumatran Mandheling coffee is the coffee with the best texture in the world." However, due to its higher defect rate, strict sorting is required during coffee processing. Mandheling is an indispensable variety for blending coffee, with rich flavor, sweet aroma, pure bitterness, mellow body, and slight sweetness and acidity.

FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling

Region: Aceh GAYO Mountain
Elevation: 1100-1600m
Variety: Typica
Processing: Wet-hulled

Golden Mandheling is trademarked by Indonesia's PWN company, making it exclusive to PWN. Most Golden Mandheling on the market is PWN Golden Mandheling.

FrontStreet Coffee's new harvest Golden Mandheling comes from GAYO Mountain in northern Sumatra's Aceh region. The variety is Ateng, which is a hybrid between Arabica and Robusta, widely planted in Sumatra and other Indonesian islands. Ateng is actually the local name for Catimor coffee. Golden Mandheling has stricter quality requirements—first ensuring bean size of 19 screen with full, uniform particles. Then it undergoes one machine sorting and three manual hand-sortings to ensure the defect rate of green beans.

FrontStreet Coffee Tiger Mandheling

Region: Aceh
Elevation: 1500m
Variety: Typica, Caturra, Sidikalong
Processing: Wet-hulled

FrontStreet Coffee's Tiger Mandheling—only Mandheling beans above 17 screen with defect rate below 4% can be called Tiger Mandheling. Since Tiger Mandheling's main varieties are Caturra and Typica. Caturra has citrus and lemon acidity in flavor, while Typica has persistent sweet aftertaste, giving Tiger Mandheling balanced flavor and high clarity. FrontStreet Coffee's Tiger Mandheling has relatively balanced flavor with distinct cream, dark chocolate, and nut notes.

FrontStreet Coffee Aged Mandheling

Region: Sumatra
Variety: Typica
Processing: Wet-hulled

Aged coffee beans don't simply mean storing green beans for a long time. It's important to know that coffee beans stored too long will spoil, turning from fresh green to white, then yellow, becoming tasteless, and even growing insects. Like aged wines, green beans must undergo proper processing and long-term storage to be called true aged coffee. So-called aged beans (Aged bean) means: letting green beans achieve natural aging through extended storage time (usually 2-3 years). These changes include reduced acidity, color changes, and thickened bean texture. Storage conditions must be cool and ventilated. Because the storage environment is relatively dim and time is long, aged coffee often has complex flavors similar to mold or what's commonly called burlap or leather.

Brewing Parameters

FrontStreet Coffee recommends using freshly roasted coffee beans for brewing to maximize the rich flavors of coffee. Coffee beans shipped by FrontStreet Coffee are roasted within 5 days because FrontStreet Coffee deeply understands that freshness greatly affects flavor. FrontStreet Coffee's roasting philosophy is "Freshly Roasted Good Coffee," ensuring every customer receives the freshest coffee when they receive their order. The coffee's resting period is about 4-7 days, so when customers receive it, it's at peak flavor.

Filter: Kono filter
Water temperature: 86℃
Coffee dose: 15 grams
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15
Grind size: Medium-fine

For daily Mandheling brewing, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using a KONO filter because it brings out a rounder, fuller body and more direct flavor expression. The KONO filter's only exhaust area is in the one-quarter rib section. When water level rises above the ribs, filter water volume continuously increases, creating pressure through water weight. Since the outlet is relatively small, it prolongs the contact time between coffee particles and water. As water flow带动, it can more effectively extract soluble substances. FrontStreet Coffee's brewing method generally achieves the high body effect expected by customers.

Brewing Method: Segment Extraction

Use 30g water for 30-second bloom, then pour with small water flow in circular motion to 125g for segmentation. When water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop. When water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the filter cup. (Timing starts from bloom) Extraction time is 2'00".

Colombian Coffee

Colombia's suitable climate provides a true "natural pasture" for coffee. The country has become the second-largest coffee producer after Brazil, the world's largest exporter of Arabica coffee beans, and the world's largest exporter of washed coffee beans. Colombia grows about 875,000 hectares of coffee across 590 cities and 14 coffee-growing regions. The country exports an average of 75% of its products worldwide, with crops accounting for 10% to 16% of agricultural GDP.

What surprised FrontStreet Coffee is that most of these coffees come from small farms—60% of Colombian coffee farms are less than one hectare, while only 0.5% of coffee-growing areas exceed 20 hectares.

Colombian coffee is a representative excellent variety among Arabica coffee species and also a traditional dark roast coffee with strong and memorable flavor. Colombian coffee bean characteristics: rich and thick aroma, bright high-quality acidity, high balance, sometimes with nutty flavor, endless aftertaste. Both in appearance and quality, Colombian coffee belongs to the premium category.

Volcanic Soil + Family Operations

Legend has it that coffee was introduced by missionaries from Venezuela in 1730 and planted in the country's southeast. Later, due to civil war and political reasons, it gradually moved to western mountainous areas. Under the ideal growing conditions of altitude and volcanic soil, Colombian coffee has been favored by high-end consumers in the United States and Japan since the 1940s. They cherish the land they live on, from choosing fertilizers to land development, practicing moderation to avoid land fatigue. Besides coffee, locals also plant tall trees or banana trees around coffee trees. During the seedling stage, they build shade structures for coffee trees to ensure the cool, humid environment needed for coffee growth. Due to high humidity and small temperature differences in coffee forests, coffee beans mature slowly. Besides natural conditions, there's another main reason Colombian coffee is superior to Brazilian coffee: family operations. They don't have heavy machinery for harvesting and irrigation, nor spare money to hire workers. All coffee fruits are hand-picked when fully ripe, which is beneficial for the accumulation of caffeine and aromatic substances, thus resulting in the best coffee quality.

Colombian Coffee Regions

Colombian coffee regions are divided into commercial beans and specialty beans. Commercial coffee bean regions are concentrated in central and northern Colombia, mostly large-scale corporate coffee farms. Among these, the famous "MAM" three major regions are Medellín, Armenia, and Manizales, with main flavors being the familiar Central American flavors with strong fruit acidity. However, Bucaramanga from the northeastern Santander province is known for low acidity and strong bitter aroma, somewhat similar to Indonesian Mandheling. (This phenomenon might be due to lower altitude in the west, leading to reduced acidity.)

Specialty coffee bean regions are mainly in the south, with elevations above 1,500 meters and many volcanoes, creating many famous specialty regions including Cauca, Huila, Meta, Tolima, Nariño, etc. The main flavors are caramel aroma with delicate berry fragrance and acidity, and obvious sweetness!

Colombian Coffee Varieties

Due to the Colombian government's strong support for coffee cultivation, Colombian coffee has also embarked on a path of diversification. Like other regions, Typica is the longest-planted coffee variety in Colombia. Typica has excellent flavor, but due to low yield and high requirements for agronomic costs and technology, many farmers have had to choose higher-yielding coffee varieties.

Bourbon is also an old coffee variety in Colombian coffee, but now only planted in a few regions. FrontStreet Coffee previously offered Pink Bourbon from Finca Paraíso in Cauca, which is a Bourbon variety. Its flavor is clean and fresh.

Caturra is the main force of Colombian coffee. It's a natural variant of Bourbon coffee, with advantages over Bourbon in that it doesn't require shade forests, has a short stature making it easy to harvest, and has more branches and higher yield. FrontStreet Coffee's current offerings "Hanayatsuki" and "Rose Valley" are Caturra varieties.

Castillo is a new generation leaf rust-resistant coffee variety jointly developed by the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) and Colombia's National Coffee Research Center Cenicafé. Cenicafé hopes to further improve the variety to achieve higher coffee yields, greater resistance, and quality and flavor comparable to Caturra. FrontStreet Coffee's "Sakura" is Castillo coffee beans from Finca El Paraíso in Cauca, Colombia.

Next, FrontStreet Coffee will use Sakura as an example to introduce Colombian Castillo coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee Colombian Sakura

Country: Colombia
Region: Cauca
Farm: Finca El Paraíso
Variety: Castillo
Processing: Double Anaerobic Washed
Elevation: 2050 meters

Brewing Recommendations

Recommended brewing method: Pour-over

Filter: V60 filter

Water temperature: 90-92°C

Coffee dose: 15 grams

Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

Grind size: Medium-fine

FrontStreet Coffee recommends using freshly roasted coffee beans for brewing to maximize the rich flavors of coffee. Coffee beans shipped by FrontStreet Coffee are roasted within 5 days because FrontStreet Coffee deeply understands that freshness greatly affects flavor. FrontStreet Coffee's roasting philosophy is "Freshly Roasted Good Coffee," ensuring every customer receives the freshest coffee when they receive their order. The coffee's resting period is about 4-7 days, so when customers receive it, it's at peak flavor.

Use 30g water for bloom, bloom time about 30 seconds. Pour with small water flow in circular motion at the center to 125g for segmentation. When water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g to finish. When water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the filter cup. (Timing starts from bloom) Extraction time is 2'00".

Dry aroma has strong spice tea fragrance with obvious floral notes. The double anaerobic washed processing brings mugwort, mint, and eucalyptus aromas. The entry has berry and strawberry candy flavors with gentle fruit acidity.

Who are Mandheling and Colombian Coffee Suitable For?

Mandheling Coffee

Suitable for friends who like full body and rich flavor. Mandheling has strong flavor with rich body and vibrant, lively character, neither astringent nor acidic, with body and bitterness fully expressed. The appearance of Mandheling coffee beans can be considered the ugliest, but coffee lovers say that the uglier Sumatran coffee beans look, the better, richer, and smoother they taste. Mandheling coffee is considered the world's most full-bodied coffee. When tasting Mandheling, you can feel obvious smoothness on your tongue. It also has lower acidity, but this acidity is also distinctly perceptible—jumping micro-acidity mixed with the richest aroma allows you to easily experience the lively factors in gentle richness. Besides this, this coffee also has a faint earthy fragrance, which some describe as herbal plant aroma.

Colombian Coffee

Those who prefer light flavor can choose acidic Colombian coffee. After roasting, Colombian coffee beans release a sweet aroma with the quality characteristic of being sweet within acidity and balanced bitterness. Due to appropriate concentration, it's often used in premium blended coffees. Colombian coffee emits a light and elegant aroma, not as strong as Brazilian coffee, not as acidic as African coffee, but a sweet light fragrance—low-key and elegant.

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