Indonesian Golden Mandheling Coffee Bean Taste and Flavor Description: Mandheling Coffee Variety Origin Price Characteristics Introduction

FrontStreet Coffee understands that sour and sweet coffee is not actually preferred by all coffee lovers, much like cilantro—some people love it, others hate it. Those who dislike acidity in coffee might prefer varieties like FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain No. 1 or FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling, which offer rich body with a touch of bitterness.

Customers occasionally visit FrontStreet Coffee's café and ask: "Do you have any non-sour coffees?" FrontStreet Coffee immediately presents FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling coffee beans and asks: "How about this one? The body is excellent!"

When coffee beginners ask FrontStreet Coffee which regional coffees are must-tries, FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling is always a coffee bean that cannot be overlooked in FrontStreet Coffee's recommendations. FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling coffee offers rich and solid flavor, with低调 yet distinctive aroma, subtle acidity, and unexpected sweetness.

The History and Origins of Mandheling Coffee

Mandheling coffee rose to fame during the same era as Blue Mountain coffee. In the last century, black coffee was synonymous with richness. Like Blue Mountain, Mandheling was successfully established worldwide through Japanese efforts.

The origin of Mandheling coffee involves an interesting story with the Japanese. During World War II, Japanese soldiers tasted an incredibly rich coffee on Sumatra Island in Indonesia. When they asked the café owner about the coffee's name, the owner mistakenly thought the soldiers were asking him to introduce himself, so he replied "Mandailing." Since "Mandailing" and "Mandheling" have very similar pronunciations in Japanese, they remembered it as "Mandheling."

After the war, Japanese soldiers wanted to taste Mandheling's rich body again in Japan, so they entrusted Japanese merchant friends to find local merchants in Indonesia to help search for Mandheling coffee. Later, Mandheling coffee became extremely popular in Japan.

That Indonesian local merchant also established what is now PWN company. PWN company even registered Golden Mandheling as a trademark, meaning only PWN company's Golden Mandheling is the true FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling. The Japanese merchants registered the "Ding Shang Mandheling" trademark. Due to different brands and marketing strategies between the two Mandheling varieties, which one tastes better is purely subjective.

FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling

FrontStreet Coffee's FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling on the bean menu is PWN company's Golden Mandheling. FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling coffee beans have a raw bean size specification of 18 mesh or above, with fewer than 3 defective beans per 300g sample, and are graded at the highest G1 level. Additionally, PWN company has conducted three rounds of manual selection for these beans, removing defective beans as much as possible to create a cleaner taste, more pronounced sweetness, and stronger aroma.

In reality, PWN company's production is not very large, so a significant portion of large selected Golden Mandheling is not from PWN company. When purchasing PWN Golden Mandheling coffee beans online or offline, if you're unsure whether they are truly from Indonesia's PWN company, you can ask the seller to provide PWN raw bean bags or certificates that come with the raw coffee beans to verify whether they are what we normally call PWN Golden Mandheling.

Coffee Details

FrontStreet Coffee · Indonesian PWN Golden Mandheling

Region: Aceh Gayo Mountain, Sumatra, Indonesia

Altitude: 1100-1600 meters

Variety: Ateng

Grade: G1, 3 manual selections

Processing: Wet Hulling

Wet Hulling Processing Method

Those familiar with Mandheling coffee should be very familiar with Sumatra region's distinctive raw bean post-processing method. Wet hulling and Mandheling coffee complement each other—wet hulling creates Mandheling coffee's unique flavor, and Mandheling coffee's flavor has made wet hulling known to the world.

Those familiar with geography know that Indonesia is located in a typical tropical rainforest climate zone with frequent rainfall and short sunshine duration, making it unsuitable for natural processing methods. Additionally, local economic conditions are average, lacking sufficient funds to invest in washed processing methods, leading to the development of this semi-washed processing method.

Coffee farmers pick fresh coffee cherries from trees and process them the same day. They use wooden peelers to remove the coffee cherry's skin and pulp, then ferment for 3 hours before drying. When the parchment beans are in a semi-dry, semi-wet state, they are collected and sold to local coffee processing stations.

Coffee processing stations receive these semi-dry, semi-wet parchment beans, first remove the mucilage layer and parchment, then continue with the final sun-drying stage. This reduces the drying time required for coffee beans to between 2-4 days, until the coffee beans' moisture content drops to 12-13% for storage.

Generally, many coffee bean post-processing methods do not remove the parchment layer before the moisture content reaches 13%, but wet hulling is an exception. Coffee processed through wet hulling will have a thicker body and carry some dull aromas like herbal plants and spices, making it very unique.

Roasting and Brewing Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasters, upon receiving FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling raw beans, adopted a medium-dark roast level to bring out FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling's characteristic rich, sweet, and clean flavors.

As coffee beans are roasted darker, the dissolution rate of substances in coffee accelerates. To avoid over-extraction, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using 88°C water temperature and medium-coarse grind size. Meanwhile, to better extract the sweetness and body of FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling, you can use a slower-flow dripper like the KONO dripper.

Brewing Parameters

Dripper: KONO dripper

Water Temperature: 88°C

Coffee Amount: 15g

Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15

Grind Size: Medium-coarse (70% pass-through rate on China standard 20-mesh sieve)

During brewing, you can use a three-stage pouring method for extraction to give the coffee more layered complexity. First, pour 30g of water to fully wet the coffee grounds and bloom for 30 seconds. Then, use a small water stream to slowly pour in circles for the second stage to 125g, allowing the water level in the dripper to drop close to the coffee bed before continuing to pour. For the third stage, pour to 225g and stop. Wait until all water drips completely into the sharing pot below, then remove the dripper. Total extraction time is 2 minutes.

After brewing, FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling has rich nutty flavors. As the temperature decreases, herbal and spice aromas begin to emerge. The aftertaste has chocolate notes and caramel sweetness, with a clean and smooth mouthfeel.

Follow Us

For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat Official Account: cafe_style)

For professional coffee knowledge exchange, please add WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473