How to Taste Indonesian Mandheling Coffee? How to Determine Roast Date and Roast Level from Coffee Beans?

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Golden Mandheling: Indonesia's Premium Coffee

Golden Mandheling enjoys great prestige in the coffee world, originating from the Lake Toba mountain region of North Sumatra, Indonesia. Exclusively sold by Pawani Company, Golden Mandheling represents the finest grade of Mandheling coffee. The green beans undergo three rounds of meticulous hand selection and refined processing. After roasting, besides presenting Mandheling's inherent rich, wild, and bold aroma, it offers higher body thickness and much cleaner, more elegant flavors, truly making it a rare coffee treasure! The PWN Golden Mandheling on FrontStreet Coffee's bean list is priced at 89 RMB per 227g package, making it a daily favorite for many coffee enthusiasts who prefer rich, full-bodied flavors.

Indonesia's Complex Coffee Landscape

In terms of production volume, Indonesian coffee consistently ranks among the top producers, with both Arabica and Robusta varieties being cultivated on a large scale. The coffee system is extremely complex, producing countless coffee varieties. The most common include "Sumatran Mandheling Coffee," "Sulawesi Coffee," "Java Coffee," and the once-extremely popular "Kopi Luwak."

Sumatra: Premium Coffee Growing Region

Sumatra Island is Indonesia's premium coffee growing region, primarily producing Mandheling coffee, with the majority coming from the northern Aceh Province and the North Sumatra Province (abbreviated as North Sum) south of Aceh. The two main producing areas are centered around the local famous volcanic lakes - Lake Toba and Lake Tawar - traditionally known as the Lindong production area and the Aceh production area.

Wet Hulling: Sumatra's Unique Processing Method

Sumatra has a tropical rainforest climate, characterized by year-round rain, humidity, frequent typhoons, and scarce freshwater resources. Local farmers cannot process large quantities of coffee beans using traditional washed methods, nor can they dry them through prolonged sun drying. Consequently, local coffee farmers invented the wet hulling method, which requires only 4 days of processing time, significantly reducing both fermentation and sun drying times, saving considerable labor. This also gives Sumatra's Mandheling coffee its unique Southeast Asian characteristics of herbal, spice, and woody notes.

Wet Hulling Process Steps:

After harvesting, coffee cherries are poured into water tanks, where immature cherries are removed through floatation. After being de-pulped by machines, they are directly poured into pools for brief fermentation of several hours. At this point, a small amount of mucilage still remains on the parchment, which is removed through brushing. Next, the parchment beans are dried until the green beans reach 30-40% moisture content for the first drying, at which point farmers sell the green beans to collectors. The collectors will directly hull the purchased semi-dry parchment beans, removing mucilage and parchment to obtain green beans. Although the time for each step is greatly shortened, the "naked beans" still absorb moisture from the humid air, giving the resulting Mandheling coffee an additional mellow aroma.

Quality Selection: The Golden Standard

The hulled green coffee beans need to be dried to 12-13% moisture content before they can be packaged and sent for quality inspection. The relatively crude processing steps of wet hulling increase the defect rate of green coffee beans. To meet Indonesia's export standards and increase coffee prices, green bean suppliers need to undergo multiple screenings to remove irregular and defective beans. Indonesia's famous green coffee company, Pawani Coffee Company (PWN), is renowned for producing multiple premium selected Mandheling coffees. "Golden Mandheling" is their signature product, which is also the Golden Mandheling coffee featured on FrontStreet Coffee's bean list.

Indonesian green coffee beans are graded by the number of defective beans, with every 300 grams of green beans as the calculation basis. The highest grade, Grade 1, requires fewer than 11 defects. Golden Mandheling coffee not only meets Indonesia's G1 standard, but the green beans first undergo machine selection, screening for batches with sizes above 18 mesh, followed by three rounds of manual selection to ensure the resulting Golden Mandheling green beans have uniform color and consistent bean shape. After FrontStreet Coffee acquired the Golden Mandheling green beans, cupping comparison revealed that Golden Mandheling not only lacks the earthy impurities common in regular Mandheling, but the various spice and herbal notes are much clearer, with overall mouthfeel cleanliness significantly improved.

Brewing Recommendations

For coffee with rich body and strong regional characteristics like Golden Mandheling, FrontStreet Coffee recommends extraction and tasting through pour-over black coffee to better appreciate the coffee's aroma. FrontStreet Coffee ships all coffee beans freshly roasted within 5 days, ensuring that when you receive them, they are at their optimal freshness, adding more flavor layers to your cup.

Due to the medium-dark roast level used for Golden Mandheling coffee beans, the internal texture of the beans is loose with strong water absorption. If brewed with the same water temperature and grind size as light roast coffee beans, the coffee can be easily over-extracted, presenting unpleasant burnt and astringent flavors. To avoid this, FrontStreet Coffee's baristas will lower the water temperature and use a coarser grind to reduce the release of bitter macromolecules in the coffee.

Pour-Over Technique

Here FrontStreet Coffee uses 87°C hot water with medium grind size (70% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve). For enhancing body in coffee, FrontStreet Coffee prefers using the KONO dripper with slower flow rate. Compared to V60's large water outlet, KONO's immersion function is better, allowing the coffee grounds to extract more flavorful substances in equal extraction time.

Three-Stage Pouring Method:

First, pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom. If the coffee grounds can form a rounded dome, it indicates the beans are very fresh. At this point, we start from the center with a fine water stream, slowly spiraling out to 125g. Wait until the water level in the dripper drops to just below the coffee bed, then continue spiraling to 225g. Total extraction time is approximately 2 minutes.

Tasting Notes

The pour-over Golden Mandheling coffee presents a rich dark chocolate aroma upon entry, with very integrated flavors of roasted hazelnuts, caramel, and sweet melon. Distinctive spice notes are evident in the mouth, with a long-lasting aftertaste.

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473