Golden Mandheling Flavor Profile and Introduction

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Many coffee enthusiasts should often see "Golden Mandheling" coffee beans, and FrontStreet Coffee's store blackboard also features FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling coffee beans in the upper right corner. So what exactly is "Golden Mandheling"? Some friends who have run coffee shops for several years say that "Golden Mandheling" is aged Mandheling, but in fact, this is not the case.

When talking about "Golden Mandheling," we must start with PWN. This abbreviation often appears alongside Mandheling coffee names. It actually refers to a green bean company—Pwani Coffee Company. This company is a very famous coffee acquisition company in Indonesia, mainly purchasing local Mandheling coffee green beans. Almost all the best producing areas in Indonesia are acquired by them, so most of the coffee beans produced by PWN Company are unique specialty products. The "Golden Mandheling" mentioned above is one of the company's products.

After the Mandheling green beans are acquired, they undergo multiple manual selections to pick out plump, flawless beans. Only these fine beans that have gone through layer-by-layer screening, like a talent show, can be classified as Golden Mandheling. However, PWN Company has registered "Golden Mandheling" as a trademark, which means that only Golden Mandheling produced by PWN Company can be considered genuine "Golden Mandheling" in the future. Many beans on the market that are not produced by PWN Company but carry the Golden Mandheling brand name should actually be called Specialty Mandheling. So, "Golden Mandheling" is not some aged bean, but rather a product named by the company.

FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling coffee is produced from Sumatra, Asian Indonesia, also known as "Sumatran Coffee." The main producing areas include Java Island, Sulawesi Island, and Sumatra Island, with 90% being Robusta varieties. Among them, the "Mandheling" produced on Sumatra Island is the most famous. The best of the refined traditional Arabica coffees produced in northern Sumatra are marketed under the names Lintong and Mandheling.

Strictly speaking, Lintong refers to coffee grown in a small area in the southwest part of Lake Toba in the Lintong administrative region. The coffee growing areas are scattered across a high, undulating clay plateau covered with ferns. Lintong coffee is grown without shade, without chemicals, and is almost entirely owned by small private holders. Mandheling is a broader term that includes Lintong coffee and growing areas under similar conditions such as Diari (capital Sidikalang) and northern Lake Toba.

Origin of the Mandheling Name

Mandheling is not a producing area name, place name, port name, or coffee variety name. How did its name come about?

In fact, it is a phonetic error of the Indonesian Mandheling ethnic group.

During World War II, when Japan occupied Indonesia, a Japanese soldier drank exceptionally fragrant and mellow coffee in a cafe. He asked the shop owner for the coffee's name. The owner misunderstood and thought he was asking about his ethnicity, so he replied: Mandheling. After the war, the Japanese soldier recalled the "Mandheling" he drank in Indonesia. He then commissioned an Indonesian coffee merchant to ship 15 tons to Japan, which turned out to be extremely popular. The name Mandheling spread this way, and that coffee merchant is now the renowned Pwani Coffee Company (PWN).

The well-known Mandheling is produced around Lake Toba in northern Sumatra. The finished product has a unique herbal and woody aroma.

FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling: Over a decade ago, Japanese people adopted stricter quality control, going through four manual bean selections to remove defective beans, producing Golden Mandheling with dark green color and uniform bean appearance, creating another wave of market demand that even drove Europe and America crazy.

Aged Mandheling: Characterized by sweetness like honey. Successful aged beans eliminate the less elegant acidity of Mandheling. The acidic and astringent components transform into sugar through aging, making the coffee rounder and sweeter to drink. Failed aged Mandheling is like a coffee zombie, with a taste that's difficult to swallow.

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