What is the biggest difference between Indonesian Sumatra Mandheling and Ethiopian Hambela Guji?

FrontStreet Coffee has always been a fan of Mandheling coffee, while at FrontStreet Coffee's Dongshankou store, coffees from Ethiopia, Africa are the most popular among friends, such as washed Yirgacheffe, natural Guji, and Gesha Village.

When it comes to the flavor and taste differences between Mandheling and Guji coffee, FrontStreet Coffee believes these are distinctly different coffee profiles. Mandheling coffee is the world's most full-bodied coffee and can be considered what people perceive as bitter coffee. It has a rich aroma, full-bodied texture, strong flavor, with slight notes of chocolate and syrup. On the other hand, Guji coffee belongs to Ethiopian coffees, which have obvious floral and fruity characteristics. Guji coffee, in particular, has distinct tropical fruit flavors such as mango, jackfruit, floral notes, and honey, resembling a cup of fruit herbal tea, which can also be described as the acidic coffee that people recognize. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee says that the flavors of Mandheling and Guji coffee have very clear differences.

Mandheling Coffee

The Dutch first introduced Arabica coffee seedlings to Ceylon and Indonesia in the 17th century. Ceylon is now known as Sri Lanka. In 1877, a large-scale disaster struck the Indonesian islands. Coffee rust disease nearly wiped out all coffee trees. Forced by circumstances, people had to abandon Arabica trees that had been cultivated for many years. They introduced Robusta coffee trees from Africa, which have strong disease resistance.

Today, Indonesia is a major coffee-producing country. The main production areas are Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi. Robusta varieties account for 90% of total production. Meanwhile, Sumatra Mandheling belongs to the rare Arabica variety. These coffee trees are planted on mountain slopes at altitudes between 750 and 1,500 meters. The unique and mysterious Sumatra has endowed Mandheling coffee with many distinctive qualities.

Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic nation. Arabica coffee cultivation was introduced as early as the 18th century during Dutch rule. The most important production areas are located on Sumatra Island, Java Island, and Sulawesi Island. Southeast Sumatra faces Java across the Sunda Strait, faces the Malay Peninsula across the Malacca Strait to the north, borders Borneo across the Karimata Strait to the east, and borders the Indian Ocean to the west.

Characteristics of Lintong Mandheling

Lintong Mandheling is produced in the Lintong mountainous area of north-central Sumatra, near Lake Toba. FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesian Mandheling region entry-level daily coffee beans come from this area. Lintong Mandheling also uses the unique wet-hulling method, which creates its characteristics of low acidity and high body. FrontStreet Coffee offers both Lintong Mandheling coffee and Gold Mandheling coffee.

Mandheling is located in the LINTONG area of northern SUMATRA Island, Indonesia, and is cultivated using traditional shade-grown methods on ancient fruit trees. The traditional shade trees help maintain humidity and increase soil fertility with rich organic matter. Sumatra beans rarely use machines for hull removal, which differs from Central and South American processing methods. This is Indonesia's unique semi-washed method, called Giling Basah, also known as the wet-hulling process. Coffee beans processed through Giling Basah have particularly low acidity and a full body.

Mandheling coffee beans are relatively large and hard. The cultivation process is prone to defects, so after harvesting, they typically undergo extremely strict manual selection. If quality control is not rigorous, it can easily lead to inconsistent quality. Additionally, different roasting profiles directly affect its taste. Therefore, it has become one of the most controversial single-origin coffees. Before Blue Mountain coffee was discovered, Mandheling was once considered the finest coffee. Mandheling's full-bodied character gives a masculine impression, with moderate acidity and extremely rich aroma; it has a bitter taste with rich body; it's bold and courageous, much like an American cowboy.

Mandheling Coffee Bean Wet-Hulling Method

Indonesia has consistently high temperatures and humidity throughout the year, lacking long periods of sunlight, with humidity levels constantly between 70-90%. Therefore, relying purely on natural sun-drying is clearly unrealistic. For Sumatra Island, with its unpredictable weather, even using the washed method for coffee beans makes it difficult to secure a full week of sunny weather for drying. Thus, the wet-hulling method emerged as a solution. After following the initial washed processing steps, the parchment coffee is placed in direct sunlight for 1-2 days until the moisture content reaches 30-50%, then the parchment is removed for sun-drying. This speeds up the coffee drying process and significantly shortens the drying time.

Among all single-origin coffees, Mandheling's appearance can be said to be the ugliest. However, coffee enthusiasts say that the less attractive Sumatra coffee beans look, the better they taste. Mandheling coffee is widely recognized as the world's most full-bodied coffee.

Mandheling Coffee Varieties

Indonesia has a very long history of coffee cultivation. Previously, Arabica was grown, but due to leaf rust disease, currently 90% of Indonesia's exported coffee beans are Robusta, with only 10% being Arabica. FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling coffee variety is TimTim Ateng, while the Gold Mandheling coffee variety is listed as Ateng. In fact, TimTim is actually Timor, an Arabica variety with Robusta lineage, while Ateng is Catimor, a hybrid of Caturra and Catimor. These variety names are just local terms.

Hambella Production Area in Ethiopia

Ethiopian coffee beans are generally named after their production areas, while "Guji" is actually produced in the Hambella area within Ethiopia's Guji region. Hambella is located in Ethiopia's largest coffee-producing region, Guji, administratively belonging to the Oromia Regional State. The Guji region used to be part of the Sidamo region but was established as an independent new production area by the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) in 2010. The most famous coffee from the Guji region is undoubtedly Guji coffee beans, which won the 2017 TOH (Ethiopia National Taste of Harvest Competition) with outstanding strawberry cream flavor, truly deserving of the name "Guji." However, not all coffee produced in Hambella can be called "Guji" - only natural processed coffee beans from the "Buku Abel" processing station can be called Guji.

Each coffee production area has different coffee flavors. FrontStreet Coffee has sourced over a dozen varieties from Ethiopia, and Guji coffee is the representative coffee from the Sidamo region and also a popular single-origin bean at FrontStreet Coffee.

Guji Coffee

Guji coffee beans are actually the Chinese direct translation of Hambella English coffee beans. They were a coffee from the Hambella region of Sidamo in the 2017 TOH green bean competition (The Taste Of Harvest) that stood out with rich strawberry and cream aroma. An ordinary Ethiopian Hambella natural processed coffee bean defeated the perennial champion Geisha, winning the natural category of that year's Ethiopia TOH with a high score of 88.21, making "Guji" truly live up to its name and deeply rooted in people's hearts. This quality Hambella coffee bean began to be known to Chinese people under the name "Guji."

Guji's 2017 TOH natural category champion became more well-known in China after entering the domestic market. It was discovered and promoted by the founder of Beijing Hongshun. The founder of Beijing Hongshun established their own coffee brand LeBunna in Ethiopia. Of course, it would be a pity if such a wonderful name was just a flash in the pan, so thereafter, Hongshun continued to introduce coffee beans from the "Buku Abel" processing station in the Hambella region, naming them Guji 2.0, Guji 3.0, Guji 3.1 to distinguish them from the previous Guji coffee and represent different batches or harvest seasons. At this time, Guji coffee still maintained certain characteristics, being sourced and introduced by Hongshun, with the production area still locked to the "Buku Abel" processing station in Hambella. Of course, as an agricultural product, coffee flavors vary each year.

Guji Coffee Bean Varieties

Because Ethiopia has so many varieties, it's like a natural gene bank for Arabica. On one hand, there are numerous varieties making identification and classification difficult; on the other hand, the Ethiopian government,出于保护考虑, is unwilling to disclose these variety details, so they are collectively referred to as Ethiopian Heirloom varieties, meaning heirloom.

Guji Coffee Bean Natural Processing Method

Hambella is located in Ethiopia's largest coffee-producing region, Guji, administratively belonging to the Oromia Regional State. To the west, Hambella faces Yirgacheffe Kochere across mountains; to the southeast, north, and south, it borders Guji's Shakiso, Uraga, and Kercha sub-regions respectively. It is Ethiopia's highest-altitude coffee sub-region, with rich humus red-brown soil at an altitude of about 2,300 meters. The large temperature difference between day and night allows coffee cherries to grow slowly. Fully red cherries are picked and processed using refined natural drying methods, with African raised beds for drying, limited to 2-3 layers thickness. Based on color changes during drying, manual selection is performed twice daily on days 1-3, with 10% sorted out each time. Afterwards, the beans are turned every three hours, and covered at noon and night with thick plastic to protect from dew, accurately controlling the fermentation degree. The entire process lasts up to 21 days, creating Guji's unique flavor profile.

FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling Bean Roasting Approach and Brewing Parameters:

FrontStreet Coffee believes that the excellent flavor of Mandheling coffee lies in the balance of acidity, sweetness, and bitterness, with high body. For roasting, FrontStreet Coffee chose medium-dark roasting to highlight the nutty, pine, and herbal notes of the coffee beans. Using a KONO dripper can achieve better body. Water temperature 88°C, water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, coffee amount 15g, grind size (75% pass-through rate on Chinese standard #20 sieve).

Brewing Flavor Description

[PWN Gold Mandheling Coffee Bean Flavor]: The coffee has multiple layers, full-bodied and clean, with rich nut and caramel aromas, chocolate notes, persistent aftertaste, and high balance.

[Lintong Mandheling Coffee Bean Flavor]: Entry with rich herbal aroma, dark chocolate, caramel, sweet aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee's Guji Bean Roasting and Brewing Parameters:

FrontStreet Coffee noticed that Guji coffee's green beans have a fermented wine aroma of coffee flowers, completely different from the grassy aroma of typical green beans. Moreover, Guji green beans vary in size with many pointed ends (Ethiopia Heirloom - Ethiopian native varieties), with good moisture content around 11%, but not the extremely hard SHB beans. Due to the high density and hardness of the beans, FrontStreet Coffee extended the dehydration time in the early stages, entering first crack with rising temperature to preserve the loss of aromatic substances like floral notes. FrontStreet Coffee chose light roasting. For brewing, to make Guji coffee more layered and rich in texture, FrontStreet Coffee chose to use a V60 dripper. The V60 dripper has ribs connecting the top and bottom and a large circular hole in the center, which accelerates water flow speed. The spiral-shaped exhaust groove design extends the water flow path, increasing contact time between coffee grounds and hot water. Each water stream converges along the grooves to the center point of the dripper, concentrating pressure on the coffee grounds and extracting coffee with richer layers.

Dripper: Hario V60, Water temperature: 90°C, Coffee amount: 15 grams, Water-to-coffee ratio: 1:15, Grind size: Medium-fine (80% pass-through rate on Chinese standard #20 sieve)

Brewing Flavor Description

[Guji G1]: Smooth, passion fruit, fermented wine aroma, jackfruit, strawberry.

[Guji 2.0]: Overall clean taste, more prominent berry aroma with nutty fragrance, richer texture.

[Guji 3.0]: Light strawberry jam, black tea sensation, short sweet aftertaste.

[Guji 3.1]: Floral, cream, tropical fruit, caramel, persistent sweet aftertaste.

[Guji 4.0]: Citrus acidity, full-bodied berry juice, lemon black tea sensation, persistent sweetness.

[Guji 5.0]: Floral, berries, citrus, plum sweet and sour, mango juice, honey, aftertaste of sweet black tea.

[Small Bean Guji]: Berry sweet aroma, creamy strawberry, passion fruit, rich fruit sweetness, full-bodied texture.

[Guji 6.0]: Full-bodied berry juice, black tea aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee's Coffee Brewing Suggestions:

Regarding coffee brewing, FrontStreet Coffee has always believed that the freshness of coffee beans greatly affects coffee flavor. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee ships coffee beans roasted within 5 days. FrontStreet Coffee's roasting philosophy is "Freshly Roasted Good Coffee," ensuring every customer receives the freshest coffee when they receive their order. The coffee resting period is about 4-7 days, so when customers receive their coffee, it's at peak flavor.

For friends who need ground coffee, FrontStreet Coffee kindly reminds you: Once coffee beans are ground in advance, there's no need for a resting period, because during transportation, the pressure from carbon dioxide buildup in the package also helps mellow the coffee flavor, so you can brew a cup immediately upon receiving the ground coffee. However, ground coffee needs to be brewed promptly, as coffee grounds oxidize quickly when exposed to air, meaning the coffee flavor will dissipate relatively quickly, and the coffee won't taste as good. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee suggests buying whole beans and grinding fresh before brewing to better enjoy the coffee's flavor.

For friends who don't like bitter flavors, they might prefer Ethiopian coffees; while for those who don't like acidic flavors, they might prefer Mandheling or Brazilian coffee flavors. In fact, FrontStreet Coffee believes that every coffee bean has its own unique flavor profile, and whatever you like is the best-tasting coffee.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473