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Are Indonesian Coffee Beans Good? Sumatra Mandheling's Rich Flavor with Sweet Bitterness

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (Official WeChat Account: cafe_style). FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling Coffee Introduction A Brief History of Mandheling Coffee In the 17th century, the Dutch introduced Arabica seedlings to Sri Lanka and Indonesia. In 1877, a large-scale disaster struck the Indonesian islands when coffee leaf disease destroyed nearly all coffee trees. People were

For more professional coffee knowledge exchange and coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

FrontStreet Coffee - Mandheling Coffee Introduction

A Brief History of Mandheling Coffee

In the 17th century, the Dutch introduced Arabica seedlings to Sri Lanka and Indonesia. In 1877, a massive disaster struck the Indonesian islands when coffee leaf rust disease destroyed nearly all coffee trees. People had to abandon the Arabica they had cultivated for years and introduced the more disease-resistant Robusta coffee trees from Africa.

Mandheling Coffee: Produced in Sumatra, Indonesia, Asia, also known as "Sumatra Coffee." Its flavor is very rich and it is considered one of the most mellow coffees in the world.

Although Indonesia is a major coffee-producing country, Arabica beans, which have gone through many hardships, only account for 10% of production. Mandheling belongs to these rare Arabica beans. These trees are grown on hillside slopes between 750 and 1,500 meters above sea level. The mysterious and unique Sumatra gives Mandheling coffee its rich aroma, full-bodied texture, strong flavor, and a sweet aftertaste with subtle notes of chocolate and syrup.

Mandheling Coffee is produced in Sumatra, Indonesia, Asia, also known as "Sumatra Coffee." The main producing areas include Java Island, Sulawesi Island, and Sumatra Island, of which 90% are Robusta varieties. Among them, the "Mandheling" produced in Sumatra Island is the most famous. The best of the refined traditional Arabica coffees produced in northern Sumatra are marketed under the names Lintong and Mandheling. To be precise, Lintong refers to coffee grown in a small area in the southwest of Lake Toba in the Lintong administrative region.

The coffee small growing areas are scattered on a high and wavy clay plateau covered with ferns. Lintong coffee is grown without shade, without chemical products, and is almost entirely owned by small private owners. Mandheling is a broader term that includes Lintong coffee and growing areas under similar conditions such as Diari [capital Sidikalang] and the northern part of Lake Toba.

Farmers put freshly picked coffee cherries into simple depulping machines assembled from scrap metal, wood, and bicycle parts. The wet, depulped beans are then placed in plastic woven bags to ferment overnight. The next morning, they manually wash away the fermented soft pulp and mucilage. The coffee beans with silver skin are pre-dried on thin boards in the front yard and then sent to the middleman's warehouse to remove the silver skin and for further drying. Finally, the coffee is transported by truck to the port of Medan (the capital of Sumatra) for the third and final drying.

Knowledge Point: Mandheling coffee beans are relatively large with hard beans. They are prone to defects during cultivation and usually require strict manual sorting after harvest. If the control process is not strict enough, it can easily lead to inconsistent quality.

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