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What is the Difference Between Espresso Coffee Beans and Mandheling Coffee Beans - Introduction to Mandheling Flavor and Taste Characteristics

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, For more professional coffee knowledge exchange and coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style) What is the difference between espresso coffee and Mandheling coffee? We often visit cafes and will see some menus listing espresso coffee and Mandheling coffee. If it's a larger coffee shop, espresso

What's the Difference Between Espresso Coffee and Mandheling Coffee?

We often visit coffee shops and see espresso coffee and Mandheling coffee on some menus. In larger coffee shops, espresso coffee usually has several subcategories: latte, mocha, cappuccino, Americano, etc., while Mandheling coffee has no such classifications. Today, I'll help you understand what espresso coffee is, what Mandheling coffee is, and whether the difference between them lies in the coffee beans or the brewing method.

Espresso

The word "Espresso" comes from the Italian word for "fast" because both the preparation of espresso and its delivery to customers happen quite quickly. Espresso drips slowly from the filter like warm honey, appearing in a deep reddish-brown color with a cream content of 10% to 30%. The brewing of espresso can be defined by 4 Ms:

Macinazione represents the correct grinding method for a proper coffee blend;

Miscela is the coffee blend;

Macchina is the machine for making espresso;

Mano represents the skilled technique of the barista.

Only when every element of these four Ms is precisely mastered can the brewed espresso be excellent. When drinking espresso, just a small sip will quickly impress you with its rich flavor and aroma, which is precisely what distinguishes espresso from other coffees. Aroma and intensity are the two measures of whether espresso is good.

Simply put, espresso beans are Italian-style blended coffee beans, made by blending coffee beans from various origins and varieties. Typically, espresso beans are composed of 6-8 different coffee beans. For example, the espresso, latte, and cappuccino we often drink are all made from Italian-style blended beans, while lattes and cappuccinos contain both espresso and whole milk.

No coffee can compare to the richness and intensity of pure Italian espresso. Precise pressure allows constant temperature water to emulsify the naturally existing oils and proteins in the coffee fibers, resulting in a syrup-like liquid. The rich, intense flavor slowly spreads across the tongue, completely captivating the entire palate and lasting for dozens of minutes. Under careful and precise operating conditions, a layer of reddish-brown and fine, dense crema will appear on the coffee surface, which is the highest realm pursued by many Italian baristas.

Espresso beans have an intense flavor, while single-origin and specialty coffee beans derive their taste mainly from the fruit's aroma, which varies by origin. Unlike Mandheling coffee beans, espresso beans are made from a blend of multiple coffee beans. Some might say: "Blending? Just pour several coffee beans together and mix them." However, it's not as easy as it looks to perfectly blend several types of coffee beans. Making a good Italian-style blended coffee involves the blender's deep understanding of coffee beans, precise scientific calculations, and years of persistence. Like a magnificent painting created by an artist mixing pigments, espresso beans are the artwork created by the blender!

The blend combination and ratio are based on coffee characteristics from around the world, combined with green bean processing methods and different roast levels, to create a finished product suitable for the general public. Blended beans use coffee beans with distinct characteristics, avoiding beans with similar flavors. After highlighting the main flavor profile, through hundreds of ratio experiments and countless trials, a blend for the general public is born.

FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling Coffee

Mandheling coffee is produced in Sumatra, Indonesia, in Asia, also known as "Sumatra coffee." It has a very rich flavor, sweet fragrance, pure bitterness, and full body, with a slight sweetness and micro-acidity, leaving a long-lasting aftertaste and finish. Most coffee enthusiasts generally drink it as a single-origin, but it's also an indispensable variety for blending coffee.

Origin

The gentleman of coffee—Sumatra Mandheling. Mandheling is a premium coffee bean grown on highland plateaus at elevations of 750-1500 meters, symbolizing a spirit of perseverance and the ability to take things up and let them go. It represents masculinity, with a taste that feels hearty, unrestrained, and roving through the world—a flavor that men find fascinating.

Life becomes full of achievement and pride because of Mandheling... The world becomes full of sunshine and love because of Mandheling. Perhaps this is like how life becomes great because of ideals and becomes extraordinary because of practice. FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesian Mandheling has always expressed its most unique sweetness through its most unique bitterness, much like life itself. When first tasting it, we might be taken aback, as even adding more sugar cannot mask that bitterness, yet we cannot control ourselves but become crazily fascinated by the captivating aroma it emits, like the thorns beside flowers, making us awake and aware.

The bitterness of Mandheling won't make you upset; instead, it will make you feel more awake. Before you encounter real pain, Mandheling is just an ordinary beverage with a bitter taste—just a liquid to refresh you, just a tool to make you pause temporarily—it cannot sense your grievances, but many people are crazily obsessed with the bitterness of Mandheling, as if poisoned and unable to quit. If you want to know why, they will tell you with a smile: "Because love is refined from bitterness." The charm of Mandheling lies in its jumping micro-acidity mixed with the richest aroma, allowing you to easily experience the lively factors in its gentle richness. Its extraordinary taste has captivated many pursuers.

In the 17th century, the Dutch first introduced Arabica seedlings to Ceylon (today's Sri Lanka) and Indonesia. In 1877, a large-scale disaster struck the Indonesian islands. Coffee rust disease destroyed almost all coffee trees, forcing people to abandon the Arabica they had cultivated for years and introduce Robusta coffee trees from Africa, which have strong disease resistance. Today, Indonesia is a major coffee-producing country. Coffee is mainly produced in Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi, with Robusta varieties accounting for 90% of total production. Sumatra Mandheling, however, is the rare Arabica variety. These trees are planted on hillside slopes between 750 and 1500 meters above sea level. The mysterious and unique Sumatra variety gives Mandheling coffee its rich aroma, full body, strong flavor, with slight chocolate and syrup notes.

Characteristics

FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesian Mandheling has a very rich flavor, with fragrance, bitterness, and full body, with a slight sweetness. Since Mandheling coffee beans themselves have no acidic characteristics, special brewing methods generally use Mandheling coffee beans as a base. During long-term heat preservation or when making iced coffee, there is no unpleasant acidic taste.

After roasting, the beans are quite large. The raw beans are brown or dark green, with a special caramel-like fragrance and a mellow, rich taste.

Preparation

As a high-quality coffee variety, most coffee lovers enjoy Mandheling coffee as a single-origin beverage. Of course, it's also an indispensable ingredient for other types of coffee.

Single-origin preparation

Roasting: Since coffee beans can only maintain freshness for 1-7 days after roasting, after which they begin to lose flavor, leaving only bitterness without the mellow taste. Therefore, roasting your own beans ensures their freshness.

Traditional roasters are drum-type, which have a stewing characteristic that makes the coffee beans' flavor more mature and the taste fuller. Home drum roasters can roast half a pound of coffee beans at a time, with each roasting session (including cooling and bean removal) taking about 21-25 minutes. For darker roasts, simply increase the time. When using them, just put in the raw beans, set the roast degree, press the start button, and the roaster can automatically complete everything from roasting to cooling.

Grinding: To blend with water, coffee makes the greatest sacrifice—being ground into pieces. Before brewing, coffee beans must be ground into fine particles to increase the contact area between water and coffee, allowing the delicious flavors to be extracted. In fact, a grinder is more important than a coffee machine. Currently, most people choose "burr grinders" because they can quickly and stably produce uniform coffee grounds. Burr grinders are simple to operate. Generally, they have two setting functions: one for grind size and one for grinding time. Grind size is usually represented by Arabic numerals, with smaller numbers indicating finer grinds. The grinder has a funnel-shaped container on top to hold unground beans and a drawer below to collect the ground coffee. When choosing a grinder, you should pay attention to its power, typically between 70-150 watts—the higher the better. Grinders with higher power grind faster, with coffee grounds spending less time between the burrs, making it easier to produce cooler coffee grounds.

Brewing: To brew a good cup of coffee, in addition to fresh coffee grounds and slightly hard water, you also need a set of brewing tools that are comfortable to use. There are mainly three types of common coffee machines:

Drip method: Water is poured over coffee grounds, allowing coffee liquid to pass through filter cloth or paper at the speed of natural gravity into a container. Basically, this method doesn't soak the coffee grounds, just lets hot water slowly pass through them. Drip cups and electric coffee machines belong to this category—they are the simplest brewing tools that can produce clean, brightly colored coffee.

Immersion method: Coffee grounds are placed in a pot, soaked in hot water for several minutes, then filtered through filter cloth or mesh to remove the grounds, forming a cup of coffee liquid. Siphon pots, French press, Belgian coffee pots, and Vietnamese coffee pots all belong to this category of immersion brewing tools. They all have a soaking process, resulting in more complex flavors.

Pressure method: Pressurized hot water is used to penetrate tightly packed coffee grounds to produce a thick coffee. Tools of this type include moka pots and espresso machines.

Quick brewing method: You can use an espresso machine for a relatively fast coffee brewing method. Espresso machines can extract several cups of coffee continuously. The high pressure during brewing emulsifies and dissolves the oils and colloids from the coffee beans. The essence of the beans is completely extracted through pressure, making the brewed coffee more concentrated with better taste and aroma.

Conclusion

From the above, we can see that espresso coffee is a general term for coffee made using an espresso machine, which includes many classifications and uses various types of espresso beans. Mandheling coffee, on the other hand, specifically refers to coffee beans from Sumatra, and its brewing and drinking methods can vary according to personal preference, not limited to espresso machines. This is the difference between espresso coffee and Mandheling coffee!