PWN Golden Mandheling Coffee Bean Variety Wet-Hulled Processing Pour-Over Mandheling Flavor and Taste Characteristics

When asked about recommendations for coffee with high body and rich texture, FrontStreet Coffee's baristas always recommend FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesian Mandheling coffee. However, seasoned coffee enthusiasts know that most Mandheling coffees have a distinctive earthy flavor, which is also one of the main reasons why many people dislike Mandheling. But why would FrontStreet Coffee's baristas recommend FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling coffee beans from Indonesia to customers? The reason is that FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling differs significantly from regular Mandheling in flavor profile. Its flavor is much cleaner, without the earthy fishy taste, featuring more of the rich, silky smoothness of chocolate and continuous sweet aftertaste, thus widely loved by coffee enthusiasts from various countries. So FrontStreet Coffee will use this article to discuss FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling.

FrontStreet Coffee · PWN Golden Mandheling Coffee Beans

Country: Indonesia
Region: Gayo Mountain, Aceh, Sumatra
Altitude: 1100-1600m
Variety: Ateng
Processing Method: Wet-hulled
Flavor: Toasted bread, nuts, pine, caramel, herbal

This FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling sold at FrontStreet Coffee's store was newly launched by the company in 2020. Unlike the FrontStreet Coffee PWN Golden Mandheling acquired in previous years, the latest batch of Mandheling comes from the Gayo Mountain region in Aceh, Sumatra, whereas the previous one was produced from Lake Tawa in Sumatra. What are the characteristics of this FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling coffee? According to FrontStreet Coffee's cupping and brewing tests of this latest harvest season's FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling coffee, it was found that compared to previous FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling, it has more toasted bread flavor, and the texture is also a bit richer.

FrontStreet Coffee has often mentioned in previous articles that the three essential conditions for producing high-quality coffee beans are region, variety, and processing method. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will discuss FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling coffee focusing on these aspects.

FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling Region

Mandheling coffee is mainly produced on Sumatra Island in Indonesia. It is Indonesia's largest island, located near the equator, with a typical tropical rainforest climate - high temperature, humidity, and abundant rainfall, making it very suitable for the growth of Arabica coffee beans.

However, Indonesia's altitude is limited, so the space for growing high-quality Arabica coffee beans is also limited. Therefore, among the coffee beans produced in Indonesia, only 25% belong to the Arabica species, because Arabica can only be grown at high altitudes to achieve the best flavor. The remaining 75% are Robusta coffee trees that can be planted in low-altitude areas, and Sumatra is the highest altitude place in Indonesia.

The Mandheling coffee produced in Sumatra is Indonesia's most famous specialty coffee. As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned above, Indonesia's climate is very humid and water resources are limited, which means traditional sun-drying or washed processing cannot be used for coffee beans. However, the wisdom of Indonesian coffee farmers should not be underestimated. Due to limited conditions, they developed the unique wet-hulled method to process coffee fruits, which not only significantly shortens drying time and ensures stable quality of green beans, thereby improving production efficiency, but the wet-hulling process also imparts a unique herbal aroma to Indonesian Mandheling.

PWN Company: The Excellence of Mandheling Coffee

When it comes to making the best Mandheling coffee, PWN company is undoubtedly the leader. PWN's full name is N.V. Pawani Medan company, which is a trading company engaged in export business. It was founded by a Chinese family from Quanzhou, Fujian, located in the important port city of Medan in Sumatra. Since 1957, it has been engaged in export business of products such as rubber, cassia seed, cloves, patchouli oil, and of course, exporting Sumatran coffee beans to Japan.

FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling is produced by their company. Seasoned coffee enthusiasts know that Japanese people particularly love Mandheling coffee. Japanese people have been especially attentive to Mandheling for a long time and have strict standards for selecting coffee fruits - meaning the produced coffee must undergo four manual selections to remove defective beans before processing and packaging for sale. The reason it's called Golden Mandheling comes from a folk story circulating among the people. When Mandheling producers were selecting flawless green coffee beans, they found that the green beans emitted a golden luster in the sunlight, thus naming it "Golden Mandheling."

Unfortunately, even though Japanese people are so attentive to Mandheling coffee, "golden mandheling" was trademarked by Indonesia's Pawani Coffee Company ahead of others, making "Golden Mandheling" exclusive to PWN. PWN is also one of the first companies to sell Mandheling coffee beans to Japan. Through cupping and tasting, FrontStreet Coffee found that FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling has a stronger sweet aftertaste and cane sugar sensation compared to other FrontStreet Coffee Mandheling varieties sold at FrontStreet Coffee's store, making it particularly special. The texture is also very clean, so FrontStreet Coffee decided to bring this uniquely flavored FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling coffee to FrontStreet Coffee's coffee enthusiast friends to taste regardless of the circumstances.

FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling green beans are actually not easy to procure because its annual production is limited. In fact, there are many unscrupulous coffee shop merchants in the market selling regular Mandheling under the guise of Golden Mandheling, but professionally trained cuppers or baristas can taste and distinguish the difference. For ordinary coffee beginners, identifying PWN Golden Mandheling is also simple - just ask the merchant to provide the green bean sack with PWN markings or the factory certificate attached with the beans to know if it's PWN Golden Mandheling. Among the dazzling array of Golden Mandheling in the market, only the Golden Mandheling produced by PWN company is truly FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling. Moreover, PWN's Golden Mandheling undergoes three manual selections and one machine selection, resulting in very beautiful beans that are also very uniform, so the brewed coffee will appear cleaner.

FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling is absolutely genuine. It was originally expected to arrive at FrontStreet Coffee's store in October 2020, but due to the impact of the pandemic, ships available for transport from Indonesia were very limited, so this latest harvest season's FrontStreet Coffee PWN Golden Mandheling arrived a month later than expected.

Aceh Gayo Mountain Region

As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned earlier, PWN company chose a new region this year - Aceh Gayo Mountain, located at the northernmost corner of Sumatra Island. Coffee cultivation in Gayo Mountain mainly revolves around the town of Takegon and the mountainous areas near Lake Tawa. The production altitude averages between 1100-1600 meters, and the coffee quality has always been excellent. However, due to previous political instability, coffee from this region was difficult to export. In recent years, as the situation has stabilized, coffee cultivation in Aceh has also developed, with quality superior to the Lintong region. This is undoubtedly an affirmation of the quality of Gayo Mountain coffee fruits, and Golden Mandheling, as Indonesia's top coffee brand, naturally will not disappoint coffee enthusiasts.

FrontStreet Coffee PWN Golden Mandheling Coffee Processing Method

As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned above, the flavor characteristics of FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling depend not only on PWN's pursuit of high-quality coffee fruit quality but also on its unique wet-hulled processing method, which makes the coffee flavor even more special, even famous for its herbal taste. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will explain the process of Indonesia's wet-hulled processing method.

Wet-Hulled Processing Method Process:

1. Harvesting

March to May and September to December each year are the harvest seasons for Sumatran coffee, where each farmer harvests fresh coffee fruits. With the promotion of specialty coffee and the implementation of the full red cherry program, more and more coffee farmers now only harvest fully red coffee cherries.

2. Depulping and Fermentation

During the harvest season, after noon each day, coffee farmers send the coffee cherries collected in the morning to depulping workshops for processing, which involves removing the skin and pulp of the coffee cherries, turning them into wet parchment coffee.

Coffee farmers ferment the parchment coffee, usually for 12-36 hours depending on specific conditions. After fermentation, the parchment coffee is dried. During the harvest season, every household has sacks spread out at their door drying parchment coffee - this is their source of coffee income. The removed skin and pulp are fermented into fertilizer, and plantations using such ecological fertilizers can earn extra points when applying for organic coffee plantation certification.

3. Hulling and Drying

When the moisture content of the parchment coffee is dried to 35-40%, coffee farmers collect them into woven bags, either 40kg or 80kg per bag, and send them to coffee processing factories for hulling, but they still need to continue drying to about 15% moisture content.

4. Machine Selection and Hand Selection

When the coffee beans are dried to 14-15% moisture content, they undergo machine selection to remove impurities and sort by particle size. This step is usually done by machine, hence the name machine selection. However, to improve quality, the machine-selected green beans will also be sent to hand-sorting warehouses for further sorting. Workers will use their keen vision and dexterous hands to pick out remaining defective beans.

FrontStreet Coffee PWN Golden Mandheling Coffee Variety

This year's FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling produced by PWN uses a different coffee variety than the Typica variety used in previous years. Instead, it uses local Ateng variety coffee fruits. The Ateng coffee variety may sound unfamiliar, but it's actually Indonesia's local name for Catimor. PWN company's use of Ateng variety coffee beans leads FrontStreet Coffee to believe they are probably trying to move in the direction of higher quantity, because Catimor is a hybrid of Robusta and Arabica coffee beans, characterized by high yield and disease resistance, thus also more cost-effective.

Ateng (Catimor)

As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned above, Catimor is not the pure Arabica variety we often talk about, but a hybrid of Timor from the Robusta species and Caturra, a variant of Bourbon. It was first developed in 1959 and began to be promoted in Brazil in the 1970s and 1980s. With its disease resistance and high yield, it has secured a place among Central and South American coffee varieties. The occasional outbreaks of coffee leaf rust crisis in Central and South America have also contributed to the application of Catimor variety coffee beans.

Its characteristics are high yield, short plants that can be densely planted, and new leaves that are reddish-brown. However, due to fast maturation speed and high yield, it requires sufficient fertilizer supply and shade. But according to FrontStreet Coffee's understanding, its lifespan is very short, averaging only ten years.

Next, FrontStreet Coffee will share roasting and brewing information with all coffee enthusiast friends.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Analysis

FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling (characteristics) has high-quality herbal notes, with stronger caramel sweetness. The fruit acidity is also calm and elegant, with rich sweetness, thick body, and wild spice flavors. Generally, FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling is best roasted until after the second crack to effectively reduce off-flavors. However, FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling already has good clarity and sweetness even before the second crack, offering more room for roasting interpretation.

Set the drum temperature to 200°C when loading, air damper at 3. After 1 minute, adjust heat to 160°C, air damper unchanged. Roast until 5'40", temperature 148°C, bean surface turns yellow, grassy aroma completely disappears, dehydration complete. Adjust heat to 140, air damper to 4.

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

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Recommendations

This brewing mainly aims to highlight the rich, clean, and fragrant characteristics of FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling, so a KONO dripper is used for brewing (this dripper was invented to mimic flannel to brew rich coffee). For medium-dark roasted coffee, choose medium-coarse grind. Use a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, with 15g of coffee grounds, and water temperature at 88°C. Reducing the coffee-to-water ratio can make the coffee texture tend toward a richer mouthfeel.

Brewing process: Slowly pour over the coffee grounds, trying to keep them as level as possible during pouring, avoiding shaking the dripper (because shaking will reduce the spacing between coffee grounds, which is not conducive to blooming exhaust). For the first stage, pour 30g of water in small circles in the center for a 30-second bloom, and the coffee ground layer will slowly expand into a "hamburger" shape. For the second stage, pour 120g of water in circles from the center outward, keeping the pouring height as close to the ground layer as possible, moving slowly to avoid over-stirring. Finally, pour 100g of water for the last stage, and wait until all the coffee liquid from the dripper flows into the lower pot to finish extraction. Extraction time is 2 minutes.

Professional coffee knowledge exchange | More coffee bean information | Please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee's private WeChat account: 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