Sumatra Coffee Bean Tiger Story Starbucks Sumatra Packaging Features How to Drink Mandheling

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Among Indonesian coffee beans, Sumatra Mandheling coffee is the most well-known. Among them, one coffee variety has a subtle connection with the Sumatran tiger—the Tiger Mandheling coffee (Sumatran Tiger · Mandheling) that FrontStreet Coffee is introducing today.

FrontStreet Coffee Indonesia Sumatra Tiger · Mandheling

Origin: Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia

Variety: Typica, Caturra

Processing: Wet-hulled method

Altitude: 1500m

Sumatra · Aceh Region

Aceh is an important coffee-producing region for Mandheling, located at the northernmost tip of Sumatra Island. In earlier years, it experienced independence movements due to religious issues. Later, the Aceh local armed government compromised and no longer sought independence, existing as a special region. Thanks to the peace in recent years, Aceh's coffee industry has developed well. Lake Tawar in Aceh and Lake Toba in Lintong are known as the "Two Lakes, Double Mandheling." In recent years, the quality and quantity of Aceh's Mandheling have surpassed the Lintong region. Even Indonesia's largest green coffee supplier, Pawani, has shifted its focus to the Aceh region.

Why is it called Tiger Mandheling?

The Sumatran tiger is an iconic animal of Indonesia, currently endangered. Sumatran tigers are always perceived as majestic and steady in people's minds. Tiger Mandheling is produced in the homeland of Sumatran tigers—Sumatra Island. This Tiger Mandheling uses 19-screen coffee beans (coffee fruits are strictly filtered through a 19-mesh screen to ensure that each bean has almost the same diameter), then undergoes three manual selections of ripe coffee fruits before processing into green beans. Therefore, local people use "Sumatran tiger" to describe the nobility and rarity of these 19-screen selected coffee beans. In FrontStreet Coffee's cupping, the coffee showed high viscosity, smooth mouthfeel, rich agarwood notes, and high sweetness, with a long-lasting aftertaste that reminds one of a Sumatran tiger crawling forward.

The greatest characteristic of Tiger Mandheling is its special aroma of pine and agarwood, which is not found in other Mandheling coffees.

Coffee Varieties

This Tiger Mandheling coffee uses two coffee varieties with prominent sweetness: Typica and Caturra. Typica has bronze-colored top leaves, oval or slender-pointed beans, elegant flavor, but weak constitution, poor disease resistance, and low fruit yield. Through cupping Typica from various origins, FrontStreet Coffee has found that its unique clean and subtle flavor, as well as its balanced characteristics, are well-represented. Caturra is a variety of Bourbon, with curved bean ends, round and slender, with better production capacity and disease resistance than Bourbon. Its overall flavor is bright with good sweetness.

Wet-Hulled Processing Method

The wet-hulled processing method first removes the skin and pulp of coffee cherries, followed by brief fermentation and sun-drying, then removal of the mucilage and parchment layer, continuing with the final drying stage until the moisture content reaches 12%. Wet-hulled Mandheling coffee beans clearly show varying degrees of compression cracks (this phenomenon results in horseshoe-shaped beans, also known as horse hoof beans), with the beans appearing dark greenish in color.

This method shortens the drying time to only two to four days. The fermentation period of the coffee beans is shortened, acidity is significantly reduced, while thickness is enhanced. Caramel and fruit aromas are prominent, even carrying herbal or grassy scents and woody odors, thus forming the unique regional flavor of Sumatra.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Analysis

FrontStreet Coffee's roasters observed that Tiger Mandheling green beans are round, yellowish-green, with good uniformity and high moisture content. The roasting target is medium-dark roast to eliminate excessive acidity and enhance its body and balance.

Heat the roaster to 200°C, start roasting with air damper at 3. After 30 seconds, adjust heat to 160°C, air damper unchanged. Return temperature point at 1'45", maintain heat. At 5'18", bean surface turns yellow, grassy aroma completely disappears, entering dehydration stage. Reduce heat to 140°C, adjust air damper to 4.

At 7'30", dehydration completed, reduce heat to 140°C. At 8'55", ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on bean surface, toast aroma clearly transitions to coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this point, listen carefully for the sound of first crack. At 9'00", first crack begins, reduce heat to 110°C, fully open air damper to 5 (adjust heat very carefully, not so low as to eliminate cracking sounds). Develop for 4'00" after first crack, discharge at 203°C.

FrontStreet Coffee Cupping Report

Dry Aroma: Herbal, Pine

Wet Aroma: Chinese herbal medicine, Caramel

Flavor: Herbal, Nutty, Creamy, Dark Chocolate

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Guide

For darker roasted coffee beans, to highlight the body, FrontStreet Coffee chooses the Kono dripper for brewing. The characteristic of the Kono dripper is its soaking function, which can use soaking to extract more coffee substances and enhance body. The Kono dripper has few ribs located at the bottom, allowing the filter paper to fit tightly against the dripper to achieve airflow restriction, thereby slowing water flow and increasing water-coffee contact time.

Parameters

Dripper: Kono Meimon

Dose: 15g

Ratio: 1:15

Water Temperature: 88°C

Grind Size: Medium-coarse grind (about 73% pass-through rate on 0.85mm standard sieve)

FrontStreet Coffee uses segmented extraction, using 30g of water for bloom for 30 seconds. With small water flow, pour in circles to 125g for segmentation. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the dripper. Extraction time (starting from bloom) is 2'05".

Brewing Flavor: Nutty, creamy, dark chocolate, caramel, Chinese herbal medicine, with prominent sweetness and relatively clean, clear flavor.

For more specialty coffee knowledge, please follow the WeChat official account: FrontStreet Coffee

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473