Indonesian PWN Golden Mandheling Coffee Brands and Golden Mandheling Coffee Brewing Steps

Some friends learning about coffee knowledge have asked FrontStreet Coffee: What's the difference between FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandailing and FrontStreet Coffee's G1 Mandailing? Why is the Golden Mandailing more expensive? What makes it special? Don't worry, FrontStreet Coffee will now explain their differences in detail.

First, What is "Mandailing"?

As one of Asia's most renowned coffee-growing regions, Sumatra Island in Indonesia is a classic in the hearts of countless coffee enthusiasts. The Lake Toba and Lake Tawa regions here cultivate the prestigious Mandailing coffee beans. It's worth noting that most of Indonesia grows Robusta varieties, while Mandailing represents the minority of high-quality Arabica beans.

According to FrontStreet Coffee's understanding, Mandailing is not the name of a planting area, nor a coffee variety, but rather a homophone of the "Mandailing" ethnic group in northwestern Sumatra.

Legend has it that during World War II, a Japanese soldier was unexpectedly amazed by a cup of delicious coffee at a local café. When he asked the owner for 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 memorable "Mandailing coffee" to Japan, where it became extremely popular among locals. In FrontStreet Coffee's view, although the story may contain fictional elements, the deliciousness of FrontStreet Coffee's Mandailing is real. Even today, many coffee connoisseurs remain loyal fans of Mandailing, pursuing its rich, mellow, and full-bodied coffee aroma.

The first coffee shop to export Mandailing coffee beans to Japan was the one from our story. Discovering the tremendous business opportunity of Mandailing coffee, he established PWN Perwakilan Niaga Nusantara coffee company in 1957. PWN company doesn't handle cultivation and green bean processing but mainly focuses on purchasing high-quality batches of Mandailing green beans locally, specializing in producing premium Mandailing coffee. Golden Mandailing is their signature product.

Differences Between FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandailing and Regular Mandailing

When the Japanese took interest in Sumatran coffee and wanted long-term purchases, they gradually discovered that local bean quality was often inconsistent. Therefore, more attention was paid to Mandailing production processes, and strict standards and methods for screening defects were established, including aspects like bean density, size specifications, and color levels. It was stipulated that produced Mandailing must undergo 1 machine selection + 4 manual hand-pickings to eliminate defects, ensuring the produced Mandailing beans were complete, uniform, large, and translucent, while also reducing the earthy and grassy flavors of Mandailing. Legend says it gleams golden under the sun, which is why it was named "Golden Mandailing."

As the premium Mandailing coffee market grew, PWN company also recognized the importance of trademarks, registering "Golden Mandailing" in English as an exclusive trademark one step ahead of the Japanese. Therefore, only Golden Mandailing produced by PWN company can be considered authentic "Golden Mandailing." Although FrontStreet Coffee knows that larger beans don't necessarily mean better coffee taste, under the higher requirements for more uniform, regular, and large beans, the quality produced is undoubtedly more guaranteed. The FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandailing that FrontStreet Coffee purchased is an authentic product from PWN company. Everyone can identify authentic FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandailing by the green bean gunny sacks with PWN markings and a certificate of origin signed by PWN company. FrontStreet Coffee displays these two identifiers in the Dongshankou store.

What Grade is FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandailing?

FrontStreet Coffee discovered on the green bean gunny sacks of Golden Mandailing that it bears the words "Triple pick" and "GRADE 1," meaning it belongs to Indonesia's highest green bean grade G1, and during production, PWN performed three hand-pickings based on the purchased GRADE 1 grade green beans.

Indonesian coffee green bean grading is primarily based on the number of defective beans, with size specifications as a secondary factor. General quality requirements include no live insects, no moldy or rotten beans, maximum moisture content of 12.5%, and impurity rate less than 0.5%. According to defect rate, they are divided into six grades, with the highest grade G1 requiring fewer than 11 total defective beans in a 300g sample. The FrontStreet Coffee Lindong Mandailing coffee in FrontStreet Coffee's daily bean series is G1 grade, produced in the Lindong region of Sumatra using wet-hulling processing method, presenting classic Indonesian Mandailing flavors: dark chocolate, nuts, herbal spices, and caramel.

What is Wet-Hulling Processing Method?

Friends who often drink FrontStreet Coffee's Mandailing coffee are certainly familiar with wet-hulling processing. The processing time for wet-hulling is much shorter than washed processing. Traditional washed processing requires 1-3 weeks, while wet-hulling can complete the entire process in just a few days. The wet-hulling method first removes the skin and pulp of the coffee fruit, briefly ferments, then dries, removes the parchment layer when the beans are semi-dry, continues with the final drying stage, and can be packaged and graded when moisture content reaches 12%.

While seemingly fast and time-saving, if not strictly controlled, wet-hulling processing is extremely prone to moisture absorption and mold growth in Indonesia's hot and humid environment. However, besides Sumatra, Indonesia's Sulawesi and Papua New Guinea also widely use this processing method. This is because Indonesia has a tropical rainforest climate with air humidity as high as 70-90%, making it impossible to dry coffee green beans through prolonged sun exposure, and washed processing costs are quite high, leaving coffee farmers with no choice but to develop this semi-washed processing method. Although the time for each step is greatly shortened, the dehulled green beans still absorb moisture from the humid air, giving the produced Mandailing coffee additional woody, herbal, and spicy deep aromas.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Recommendations

To present classic Mandailing flavors, FrontStreet Coffee uses medium-dark roasting to eliminate excessive acidity in FrontStreet Coffee's Mandailing and enhance its body and balance. During cupping, FrontStreet Coffee sensed that FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandailing carries aromas of spices, herbal plants, and pine, with rich, bitter-sweet flavors of caramel, nuts, and pure dark chocolate, accompanied by a sweet aftertaste of melon and fruit. It presents multiple layers, is full-bodied and clean, with high balance. Below, FrontStreet Coffee shares brewing insights for this delicious FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandailing coffee, teaching everyone how to brew its essence.

FrontStreet Coffee's extraction parameters are typically set based on coffee bean characteristics, roast level, and flavor profile. Taking today's protagonist, FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandailing, as an example, it belongs to dark-roasted bitter-tuned coffee. To present a full-bodied texture, FrontStreet Coffee's barista chooses the KONO Meimon dripper to brew such beans. Compared to V60 drippers, KONO drippers have smooth curved surfaces with weaker exhaust effects, and straight ribs only covering one-quarter of the dripper, allowing the coffee powder layer and hot water to form immersion extraction, making the coffee taste both mellow and full-bodied. KONO drippers are also suitable for full-bodied coffee beans like FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate and FrontStreet Coffee's Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1.

Grind size is one of the most critical factors affecting coffee taste. After coffee beans are ground into powder and contact with hot water, they release large amounts of water-soluble flavor compounds. Dark roasting makes the internal structure of coffee beans loose, and we can easily crush them with a gentle press, indicating strong water absorption when ground into powder. To avoid coffee powder releasing excessive bitter compounds after absorbing water, FrontStreet Coffee adjusts the grind to be coarser and uses lower temperature water for pour-over brewing.

FrontStreet Coffee adjusts grind size using a tool—China No. 20 0.85mm standard sieve. For light to medium roast coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee consistently uses 75-80% sieve pass rate, while for medium-dark roast coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee uses 70-75%. Compared to light roast coffee, the internal structure of medium-dark roasted FrontStreet Coffee Mandailing beans is looser, thus having better water absorption and easily releasing large-molecule bitter compounds. To avoid over-extraction, FrontStreet Coffee chooses a coarseness level with 70% pass rate through the No. 20 standard sieve.

Water temperature plays a similar role to grind size. The higher the water temperature, the higher the coffee extraction efficiency, making it easier to release various compound components, resulting in higher concentration. If using near-boiling hot water for brewing, it's easy to extract unpleasant bitter compounds. Therefore, when brewing medium-dark roast coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee uses different brewing parameters than for light roast coffee beans. The caramelization reaction is more extensive than in light roast coffee beans, making it easier to release bitter large-molecule compounds. To avoid extracting excessive off-flavors, FrontStreet Coffee lowers the water temperature slightly. Light roast coffee brewing water temperature is 91-93°C, while FrontStreet Coffee recommends 87-88°C for medium-dark roast coffee beans.

Recommended Brewing Parameters:

• Recommended brewing water temperature: 87-88°C
• Coffee grounds: 15 grams
• Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15
• Grind size: Medium-coarse grind (70% pass rate through China standard No. 20 sieve)

The brewing method uses a three-stage pour technique. Dividing into three stages can better express the full-bodied texture and caramel sweetness of FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandailing coffee.

First stage: Bloom with 30ml water. This pour completely wets the coffee grounds for degassing, facilitating better extraction of coffee flavor compounds in subsequent stages. Second stage: Pour 100ml. This stage mainly brings out the golden crema of FrontStreet Coffee's Mandailing and raises the powder bed.

Final stage: Gentle center pour of 95ml. This enhances the coffee's sweetness, overall presenting a rich, full-bodied texture with caramel sweetness and chocolate, nut flavors.

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style). For more premium coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat, ID: qjcoffeex

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473