The Origin Story of Starbucks Sumatra Coffee Beans: Why PWN Golden Mandheling is Called Golden Mandheling

The Story Behind Sumatran Coffee

Every product has its unique story. Sumatran coffee is not just about taste—it's about sentiment. Today, let me share the story of Sumatran coffee with you. This isn't a story of love and hate like TV dramas, nor is it filled with the ups and downs of movies, and certainly not as humorous as stage plays. The story is long—if you're willing to listen, I'll tell it!

The Beginning of the Story

When you think of flying saucers, isn't this the first image that comes to mind?

But to date, my favorite flying saucer is this one:

Because it resembles the side view of an Arabica coffee peaberry.

This is from the 2016 sci-fi blockbuster "Arrival." In the movie, there's a scene where the female protagonist, linguist Louise Banks, tells Colonel Weber a story:

In the 18th century, Captain Cook arrived in Australia and asked the indigenous people what the jumping animals all over the place were. The answer he received was "kangaroo," and thus the English word for kangaroo was born.

However, Cook didn't know that this word actually meant "What did you say?" in the native language.

After the colonel left, the male lead Hawkeye said, "Good story."

The female protagonist replied: "It's fake, but it works."

A Similar Story in the Coffee World

On February 14, 1942, the Japanese military deployed 320 aircraft to parachute into Palembang, the oil field area of Sumatra.

In less than a month, the Dutch governor surrendered.

On March 15, Consumer Rights Protection Day, the Japanese military occupied Indonesia.

From the occupation of Sumatra until the emperor announced surrender in 1945, the Japanese military encountered no large-scale attacks and lived a relatively peaceful life.

One day, a Japanese soldier was drinking coffee at a café in Sumatra and found it quite good. He asked the owner: "What is this?"

The owner thought he was being asked: "Where are you from?"

So he replied: "Mandailing."

This is actually a common human phenomenon—we tend to think others are most interested in ourselves, so we habitually talk about ourselves.

Perhaps because of this, he naturally believed he was more noteworthy than the coffee.

Indonesia is composed of 17,508 large and small islands, with more than 300 ethnic groups, each having their own relatively independent characteristics and identity. Sumatra was successively colonized by the British and the Dutch, so the owner didn't have a particularly strong reaction to the arrival of the Japanese military!

However, this coffee left a deep impression on the Japanese soldier.

After the war, the Japanese soldier returned to Japan alive. Recalling the coffee he drank in Sumatra, he vaguely remembered the name was something like "Mandheling."

So he called a man named Pwani from Medan and asked him to purchase a batch of "Mandheling coffee" on his behalf.

Here comes the problem—what exactly is this "Mandheling coffee" that resulted from miscommunication?

Mr. Pwani likely began a quick analysis in his mind:

The earliest coffee beans in Indonesia were in 1696, when the Dutch governor of Malabar in India sent a batch of coffee seedlings to the governor of Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies. This was the first time coffee was planted in Indonesia.

However, the first batch of coffee seedlings was washed away by floods.

In 1699, Batavia received the gift again.

This time, the coffee seedlings survived successfully and yielded their first harvest in 1701, beginning Indonesia's coffee journey.

At that time in Europe, coffee was already very popular among the upper class.

Starting in 1711, Indonesian coffee began to supply the European market. At that time, Indonesia was the first country outside of Africa and Arabia to grow coffee on a large scale.

The Dutch were known as the "sea carriage drivers," hoping to transport coffee beans to Europe quickly.

So in 1718, the Dutch transplanted coffee from Java Island to the Mandailing highlands on the west side of Sumatra Island. Because it was close to the Indian Ocean, the return journey to the Netherlands could save several days of sailing time.

Previously, coffee farmers here called this coffee Java Mandailing coffee. However, the climate here was not suitable for growing Typica coffee, but rather more suitable for low-altitude Robusta. So Java Mandailing was transplanted to the Lake Toba mountainous area (Linton) in North Sumatra Province. The Mandailing and Batak ethnic groups were the main coffee growers in North Sumatra Province. Later, they discovered that the Aceh Special Region north of North Sumatra Province was cooler.

So in 1924, they moved north again to the Lake Tawar area in Aceh (Gayo Mountain), mainly cultivated by the Gayo ethnic group.

At this point, Mr. Pwani had a general idea.

Most of Sumatra's Arabica coffee beans come from the Lake Toba and Lake Tawar regions, so he obtained 15 tons of beans from the Lake Toba region and sent them to Japan. The response was exceptionally good.

Mr. Pwani registered a company called Pwani Coffee Company, which at one point exclusively sold Mandheling from the Lake Toba region.

However, due to the relatively high number of defective beans, the Japanese performed four rounds of manual sorting to remove the defective beans, making the quality purer. This coffee became known as Gold Mandheling.

However, the brand painstakingly created by the Japanese was unexpectedly registered first by Pwani's company, resulting in a significant loss for the Japanese.

This is roughly the story of how "Mandheling" came about through miscommunication, but the story of Sumatran coffee doesn't end there.

For example:

Sumatran Semi-Washed Processing Method, Also Known as Wet Hulling

This processing method is unique.

The coffee is de-pulped and de-mucilaged, then dried while retaining the parchment. However, it's not dried completely to a 10%-12% moisture content. Instead, the parchment is removed after partial drying.

At this point, the green beans have a high moisture content, are large in volume, and appear whitish. The large-volume green beans then undergo further drying, gradually turning to a deep blue-green color.

To get by in life, you need a bit of green. The green of FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling is highly distinctive.

Important Notice :

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