Indonesian Coffee Brand - PWN Pwani Coffee Company Introduction: How to Recognize PWN Golden Mandheling?

Understanding Sumatra's Complex Mandheling Classification System

Sumatra has a very complex system for distinguishing the Mandheling coffee it produces, most commonly by naming different Mandhelings according to different regions, green bean suppliers, and processing methods. For example, FrontStreet Coffee's Lindong Mandheling, FrontStreet Coffee's Tiger Mandheling, FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling, and FrontStreet Coffee's Aged Mandheling. FrontStreet Coffee's Dongshankou store typically maintains a daily bean "FrontStreet Coffee's Lindong Mandheling" and a premium "FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling" for everyone to choose from.

FrontStreet Coffee's Lindong Mandheling refers to Arabica coffee from the mountainous area around Lake Toba in North Sumatra Province. This lake is geographically located north of Medan, the capital of Sumatra Island, and is a high-altitude freshwater lake with an average elevation of approximately 900 meters. FrontStreet Coffee's Lindong Mandheling uses local wet hulling processing, presenting the unique stuffy aroma of herbal plants characteristic of Mandheling. However, FrontStreet Coffee's Lindong Mandheling production doesn't focus much on screening, making it a regular version of Mandheling coffee. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee includes Lindong Mandheling in its daily FrontStreet Coffee staple bean series, launched in 100-gram small packages, allowing everyone to taste the flavor of Southeast Asian coffee, and it's also suitable for newcomers trying pour-over coffee.

The Premium Quality: PWN Golden Mandheling

When it comes to high-quality Mandheling coffee, FrontStreet Coffee must mention the well-known Pawani Company (Pwani Coffee Company,简称PWN). After all, Pawani can be considered the headhunting company for specialty Mandhelings, specializing in acquiring high-quality Mandheling green beans and contracting the best-looking Mandheling batches in Indonesia. Most Mandheling coffee beans from Pawani are of specialty grade.

Pawani itself is a trading company engaged in export business, founded by a Chinese family from Quanzhou, Fujian, with its processing plant located in Medan, an important port city on Sumatra Island. Since 1957, it has been engaged in export business for products such as rubber, cassia seed, clove, patchouli oil, and of course, exporting Sumatra coffee beans to Japan.

The Authentic Golden Mandheling

"Golden Mandheling" is the exclusive brand of Indonesia's Pwani Coffee Company (PWN). There are many different types of Mandheling products on the market. Since PWN Company has registered the English name "Golden Mandheling" as the company's trademark, only Golden Mandheling coffee produced by PWN Company is truly Golden Mandheling in the true sense. Everyone can identify authentic Golden Mandheling by the green bean gunny sacks with PWN logo and a certificate of origin signed by PWN Company. FrontStreet Coffee displays these two identifiers in its Dongshankou store.

The Wet Hulling Process

Wet hulling is one of the most common green bean processing methods in Indonesia, born out of necessity due to local climate conditions. Indonesia's annual humidity ranges between 70-90%, typhoons can come unexpectedly, and annual rainfall even reaches over 2000mm. Such harsh weather conditions simply cannot accommodate the 2-3 week sun-drying process used in Africa. The washed processing method is not only time-consuming but also consumes more labor costs and water resources, which Indonesia, with its focus on mass production, simply cannot afford. Thus, the unique semi-washed method—wet hulling—was developed.

Coffee cherries with skin and pulp removed are directly poured into a pool for brief fermentation of several hours. At this point, a small amount of mucilage will still remain on the bean shell, which is removed through brushing. Then the parchment coffee is dried to the first drying stage, reaching only 30-40% moisture content, about 2-3 days, at which point coffee farmers will sell the green beans to buyers. Buyers will directly use machines to hull the purchased semi-dry parchment coffee, obtaining the innermost green beans.

Since the hulling machine uses greater friction to tear open the parchment layer tightly attached to the green beans, at this stage, white or green viscous liquid typically flows out. Due to long-term soaking in viscous liquid and humid conditions, the final green beans become soft, pale and swollen, forming a gray-green color. Through the stirring of friction, the green beans are also more easily crushed or squeezed, especially at both ends, forming small gaps and creating elephant foot beans. The "naked beans" without parchment dry very quickly, and can be packaged when moisture content reaches 12-13%.

Quality Control and Grading

While the increased processing speed brought greater efficiency, it also resulted in a higher defect rate for Mandheling. Therefore, before export, manual selection is necessary to remove defects to achieve Indonesia's G1 grade (fewer than 11 defects per 300 grams of green beans). Typically, we see DP (double picking) and TP (triple picking), with more rounds of careful screening indicating higher quality coffee beans.

Indonesian green bean grading is primarily based on the number of defective beans, with size specifications as a secondary factor. General quality requirements include no live insects, no moldy or rotten beans, maximum moisture content of 12.5%, and impurity rate less than 0.5%. According to defect rate, they are divided into six grades, with the highest grade G1 requiring fewer than 11 defective beans in a 300g sample. The staple Mandheling coffee beans mentioned above by FrontStreet Coffee are G1 grade, using wet hulling processing, representing the regular version of Indonesian Mandheling flavor.

PWN's Exceptional Quality Standards

PWN Company, which takes screening to the extreme, purchases Mandheling green beans of 18 mesh or above, with fewer than 3 defective beans in a 300g sample, representing G1 grade—the highest grade of Indonesian green beans. Subsequently, they strictly follow standards with 1 machine selection + 3 manual defect selections to ensure the uniformity of shape and size of Mandheling coffee beans. Additionally, before packaging, PWN Company places the green beans in machines for density-based color screening, making FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling uniformly bright and translucent in color.

Trademark Protection and Authenticity

As the specialty Mandheling coffee market grows larger, PWN Company also recognized the importance of trademarks, registering the English name "Golden Mandheling" as an exclusive trademark one step ahead of the Japanese. Therefore, only Golden Mandheling produced by PWN Company can be considered true "Golden Mandheling," while those produced by the Japanese had to be renamed "Dingshang Mandheling." The FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling acquired by FrontStreet Coffee is of course the authentic product from PWN Company. Everyone can identify authentic Golden Mandheling by the green bean gunny sacks with PWN logo and a certificate of origin signed by PWN Company. FrontStreet Coffee displays these two identifiers in its Dongshankou store.

Roasting and Cupping Analysis

In terms of roasting, to present the typical Mandheling flavor while preserving more herbal spice aromas, FrontStreet Coffee's barista uses medium-dark roasting. Before launching any coffee bean, FrontStreet Coffee conducts at least one cupping evaluation. Under the same standards, cupping allows us to more objectively perceive the strengths and weaknesses of the coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee conducted cupping comparisons of FrontStreet Coffee's Lindong Mandheling and FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling from its bean menu simultaneously. FrontStreet Coffee's Lindong Mandheling has rich chocolate, brown sugar, and nutty flavors, with the aftertaste presenting herbal notes.

FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling, in the dry aroma stage, reveals pine, nuts, spices, and herbal plants. As hot water is injected, licorice and caramel flavors emerge. When tasted, it presents black chocolate, nuts, and spice flavors, with overall cleanliness, noticeable sweet aftertaste, and high body.

FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling Brewing Formula

Brewing water temperature: 87-88°C Coffee grounds: 15 grams Powder-to-water ratio: 1:15 Filter cup: KONO filter cup Grind size: Medium-coarse grind (70% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve)

The brewing method uses a three-stage water injection approach. Dividing into three stages of water injection can better express the rich body and caramel sweetness of Golden Mandheling coffee.

First stage bloom: inject 30ml of water. This injection completely wets the coffee grounds for degassing, allowing for better extraction of coffee flavor compounds in subsequent stages.

Second stage: inject 100ml. This stage primarily flushes out the golden foam of Mandheling and raises the powder bed.

Final stage: gently inject 95ml of water at the center. This enhances the sweetness of the coffee.

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473