Where to Buy Quality Golden Mandheling Coffee and Price Guide

Golden Mandheling Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted FrontStreet Coffee Indonesian PWN Golden Mandheling coffee beans offer excellent guarantees in both brand and quality. More importantly, they provide exceptional value - a half-pound (227g) package costs only about 89 RMB. Calculating at 15g per cup, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each cup costing less than 6 RMB. Compared to cafés that charge dozens of RMB per cup, this is truly a conscientious recommendation.

What is "Golden Mandheling Coffee Bean"?

01 | Origin Introduction

Indonesia's main coffee-producing regions include Sumatra Island, Java Island, and Sulawesi Island, with "Mandheling" from Sumatra Island being the most famous. Mandheling is also known as "Sumatra Coffee." Most coffee from North Sumatra is Gayo, primarily of the Ateng variety. Lake Tawar in the northern region can be called Aceh Coffee or Lake Tawar Coffee, while South Sumatra's Lintong and Lake Toba areas can be called Mandheling. The Lintong area is truly the Mandheling producing region. The best Mandheling varieties include four types: Sidikalang, Bergendar, Siborong borong, and Telok Sanggul.

Lake Toba, located in central North Sumatra Province, where Dutch colonists moved "Java Mandheling" northward to the Lake Toba region in 1888, creating the modern Mandheling legend.

Lake Tawar, located in central Aceh Special Autonomous Region. Situated at the northern tip of Sumatra Island, its area is less than one-tenth of Lake Toba. However, in recent years, coffee quality and production have surpassed Lake Toba.

The Gayo Mountains are located in the Aceh region of northern Sumatra Province. Most coffee farmers working in Gayo are local farmers. The term "Gayo" originates from tribes in Indonesia's Aceh region. This area has ideal growing conditions, a long historical culture, and unique flavors. The region widely employs organic methods for coffee cultivation, avoiding chemical fertilizers, and is considered a world green coffee production area. Therefore, Gayo coffee is often called green coffee or Gayo organic coffee.

What is "Golden Mandheling"?

Speaking of FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling, we must start with PWN. This abbreviation is often mixed together with the name Mandheling coffee - it's actually the abbreviation for Pwani Coffee Company.

This company is a very famous local coffee acquisition company in Indonesia, mainly acquiring Mandheling coffee. Almost all of Indonesia's best producing regions are acquired by them, so most beans from PWN company are unique specialty coffees. FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling is a product produced by this company. After acquiring green beans, they undergo multiple manual selections to pick out full, defect-free beans. Only these premium beans, which seem to undergo selection-like层层筛选, can be classified as Golden Mandheling.

However, PWN company has registered Golden Mandheling as a trademark, meaning that only Golden Mandheling produced by PWN company in the future can be considered the true FrontStreet Coffee "Golden Mandheling." Many beans on the market not produced by PWN company but labeled with the Golden Mandheling brand name should actually be called Premium Mandheling. "Golden Mandheling" is merely a product named by the company.

02 | Processing Method

Wet Hulling, also known as Wet Husking, is called Giling Basah in the local language and is a traditional Indonesian coffee processing method. Judging from the name alone, Wet Hulling seems very similar to wet processing (washed processing), however, the cupping flavors of these two processing methods are completely different. Coffee processed by Wet Hulling is typically rich and intense, with a very distinct personality.

Wet Hulling Processing Steps

① Remove skin and pulp, retaining parchment and mucilage

② Ferment in water tanks

③ Wash away mucilage

④ Sun-dry with parchment for 2-3 days until moisture content reaches 20-24%

⑤ Hull off parchment

⑥ Dry green beans until moisture content reaches 12-13%

⑦ Prepare for export

Why Use Wet Hulling?

a. Climate Reasons

Indonesia's tradition of using Wet Hulling dates back to local weather conditions. Indonesia's humidity remains between 70-90% year-round, with constant typhoons, and in some regions, annual rainfall can even reach 2,000mm. Green beans fear rain most - how does Indonesia overcome such harsh weather conditions to produce rich, full-bodied Mandheling coffee? That relies on Wet Hulling.

In tropical climate conditions, coffee takes an average of 2-3 weeks to dry. In Indonesia's humid climate, drying coffee becomes a major problem. Coffee drying must take longer, during which time the coffee maintains higher humidity, making it easier for bacteria to penetrate green coffee beans.

In regular washed processing, the drying process is carried out with parchment to protect green beans from external damage to some extent. However, we can note that Wet Hulling removes parchment for the final drying step, allowing sunlight to directly shine on the green bean surface, making coffee beans dry 2-3 times faster than washed processing.

b. Economic Benefits

Dutch colonists first introduced coffee to Indonesia in the 17th century. These colonists pursued more and faster economic returns. Wet Hulling greatly shortened the time spent on farms and significantly reduced labor costs. This aligned with the investor mentality of pursuing quick profits and reducing costs. This is also a driving force behind Wet Hulling.

c. Defects and Kuku Kambing (Goat Hoof Beans)

When hulling parchment in Wet Hulling, the coffee's moisture content is still as high as 20-24%, whereas in regular processing methods, coffee moisture content drops to 10-12% before hulling. In a "semi-dry" state, parchment tends to adhere to the green bean surface, making hulling more difficult than "fully dry" hulling, requiring greater friction during the hulling process.

But on the other hand, "semi-dry" green coffee beans are very fragile at this time, with hardness far less than "fully dry" green beans, so beans are more easily squeezed and injured, forming small gaps. This is what we often call horse hoof or goat hoof beans (locally called kuku kambing).

The ultra-fast speed of Wet Hulling also results in higher defects in Mandheling. Processing plants arrange employees for manual defect sorting, generally including DP (Double Picked) and TP (Triple Picked). Mandheling that undergoes triple picking will have better defect rates than double picking.

The flavor of Wet Hulling, aside from those subtle differences, we generally believe Wet Hulling beans have earthy, smoky, and chocolate flavors, with acidity described as "low acidity," rich yet seemingly dull.

Low acidity comes from shorter, less effective fermentation processes and longer drying times. The "earthy flavors" of Wet Hulling beans are subject to various interpretations. Some say this relates to the bean varieties used in Wet Hulling-related regions (Timor & Catimor: with Robusta bloodline), some say this results from organic interaction between green beans and the external environment, and some even say it's because there are too many defective beans!

03 | Green Bean Analysis

FrontStreet Coffee: FrontStreet Coffee PWN Golden Mandheling Coffee Beans

Origin: Sumatra Island, Indonesia

Processing Method: Wet Hulling

Variety: Typica

Roast Level: Medium-Dark

We choose to drop the beans before the second crack, retaining some soft acidity. The taste has high sweetness, rich aroma, and full body. Flavors: toasted bread, pine, caramel, cocoa, with slight earthy notes. In the specialty coffee system, Sumatra coffee is a wonderful existence. You see, the famous Mandheling is actually not the name of a producing region, nor the name of a coffee bean variety, and even its bean variety origins are quite chaotic.

Ateng

It's a hybrid variety between Arabica and Robusta, with several subtypes, widely grown in Sumatra and other Indonesian islands. To put it bluntly, it's a branch of Catimor, with Ateng being the local name.

Djember

Djember, when searched on Baidu, is a place name in Sumatra. It looks quite mysterious, but the variety is actually S-795. Since this variety was spread to the island by Jember Coffee Research Center, locals call S-795 by this name.

What is S-795? It's a hybrid created by Indian botanists crossing the Typica mutation Kent and S-288.

What is S-288? It's a natural hybrid between Arabica and Liberica.

TimTim

It's Timor Hybrid, which translates to Timor Hybrid, meaning a hybrid of Arabica and Robusta. Our familiar Catimor is created by hybridizing with it again.

Tim Tim - Longberry Mandheling

Tim Tim is a bean from Indonesia. Due to its long shape, many people call it horse face bean, and some call it long Mandheling. Actually, tim tim is not a pure variety bean, but a variety naturally hybridized from Arabica coffee trees and Robusta coffee trees. This variety was discovered on Timor Island in the 1940s and was cultivated due to its natural disease resistance. In America, this variety is called Hybrido de Timor, abbreviated as Tim Tim, while in Indonesia this variety is also called Bor Bor.

04 | Roasting Analysis

FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling belongs to green beans with relatively high moisture content, with high deviation values from natural process beans in moisture, so special attention must be paid during dehydration. For high moisture content green beans, you can immediately close the air damper after putting in the beans, steam for 30 seconds then open to level 3, until the bean color turns light green or white, then open the air damper to level 4, after first crack open to level 5 (maximum).

FrontStreet Coffee suggests做好 data recording before roasting: coffee bean moisture content, density, origin, processing method, roasting environment temperature and humidity in the roasting room, etc., and plan your roasting curve. Record relevant chemical and physical change phenomena during the roasting process - this will help you better understand the final roasting results and improve your roasting curve.

Roasting Curve:

Heat the roaster to 200°C and charge beans, air damper set to 3. After 1 minute, reduce heat to 160°C, air damper unchanged. Roast to 5 minutes 40 seconds, temperature 148°C, bean surface turns yellow, grassy smell completely disappears, dehydration complete, adjust heat to 140°C, air damper to 4;

At 9 minutes 40 seconds, ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface, toast smell clearly turns to coffee aroma, can be defined as prelude to first crack. At this time, listen carefully for the sound of first crack. At 9 minutes 54 seconds, first crack begins, reduce heat to 60°C, air damper fully open (adjust heat very carefully, not so low that there's no crackling sound), discharge at 204.5°C.

Cupping Report:

FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling tastes cleaner than FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling. The original herbal, earthy, and woody flavors of Mandheling have almost disappeared, but the caramel sweetness is stronger, and the fruit acidity is relatively bright and elegant. Generally, FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling is best roasted to after second crack before discharge, which can effectively reduce miscellaneous flavors. However, FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling has good clarity and sweetness whether discharged before or after second crack, offering more room for roasting interpretation.

04 | Brewing Analysis

Medium-dark roasted beans generally have higher dehydration rates, so they're lighter in weight. During brewing, the powder doesn't completely sink to the bottom - it's immediately absorbed when water is first poured. Due to vigorous degassing, bubbles surround the powder creating channels. The fresher the beans, the longer these channels persist, causing water level to drop quickly. I generally use coarse water flow and slow circular pouring.

FrontStreet Coffee Pour-over Suggestions:

Dripper: KONO

Water Temperature: 88°C

Grind Size: Coarse sugar (EK43s setting 11)

Roast Level: Medium-Dark Roast

Pouring Method: Three-stage pouring

Flavor: Multi-layered, clean, balanced, with persistent caramel sweetness in aftertaste

Wet the KONO dripper to make the filter paper fit better with the coffee dripper. Pour out the water from the sharing pot, put in 15g of ground coffee powder, use 30g of water to bloom for 30s. This pour completely wets the coffee powder for degassing, to better extract coffee flavor compounds in subsequent steps. Some friends extend the bloom time to 45 or 50 seconds when extracting light roast coffee beans to enhance the front-end aroma of coffee. However, if the bloom time is too long for dark roast Mandheling coffee, it easily releases excessive woody and miscellaneous flavors, so FrontStreet Coffee chooses 30 seconds blooming.

In the second stage, start from the center with small circular water flow, slowly pour hot water, maintaining steady water flow until reaching 125g, then pause. Wait until the coffee powder bed drops to half the dripper height, exposing the powder bed, then begin the second pour with the same technique until reaching 225g. Wait for all dripping to complete before removing the dripper. Extraction time is two minutes, with 10-second margin of error. Finally, shake the coffee in the lower pot evenly and you can start tasting FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling black 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