What Makes Indonesian Mandheling Coffee Special? Differences Between Mandheling Coffee Beans and Americano

Medium-dark roasted Indonesian Mandheling coffee exudes a rich coffee aroma, reminiscent of a complex fragrance of nuts, dark chocolate, roasted chestnuts, and spices like cinnamon. It tastes smooth and mellow like caramel and cream, completely filling the entire palate with a robust texture and a sweet aftertaste. It is one of the top choices for single-origin coffee among those who love strong, bitter black coffee.

Why are most Mandheling coffees medium-dark roasted?

FrontStreet Coffee has noticed that in the past, Mandheling coffee on the market was uniformly medium-dark roasted, presenting a classic, rich black coffee flavor profile. With the development of specialty coffee culture in recent years, people have begun to pursue more unique coffee tastes, and many merchants have introduced medium-roasted or even medium-light roasted Mandheling coffee. The lighter the roast, the more acidity the coffee beans retain, with flavors dominated by fruits, herbal plants, and tea notes, while the body is lower. We might wonder, since medium-light roasted Mandheling is so refreshing, why not roast it lighter?

Those who frequently drink Mandheling coffee probably know about Sumatra's wet-hulling process. In wet-hulling, before the final drying stage, the beans are poured into a hulling machine that uses significant friction to tear away the semi-dry parchment layer tightly attached to the raw beans. Through the stirring of friction, the raw beans are easily crushed or squeezed. The "naked beans" without parchment dry very quickly but are also directly exposed to humid environments, fostering the growth of various microorganisms.

Although wet-hulling indeed creates unique herbal and woody aromas for Mandheling, it also results in a higher defect rate in raw beans, which dark roasting can perfectly mask. Additionally, Mandheling's fame originated from the early discovery by the Japanese, who preferred the Japanese-style dark roast, which is why most Mandheling coffees are roasted so dark. FrontStreet Coffee wants everyone to experience the classic Mandheling flavor, so the two types of Mandheling sold daily at FrontStreet Coffee are both medium-dark roasted, including the Lin Dong region Mandheling staple bean and the PWN Golden Mandheling coffee from the Aceh region.

What grade is Golden Mandheling?

"Golden Mandheling" is an 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 their trademark, only Golden Mandheling coffee produced by PWN Company is truly Golden Mandheling. You can identify authentic Golden Mandheling by the raw bean gunny sacks with the PWN logo and a certificate of origin signed by PWN Company. FrontStreet Coffee displays these two identifiers in the Dongshankou store.

The Japanese, after discovering Sumatra coffee, purchased it long-term and gradually found that the local bean quality was often inconsistent. Therefore, they became more meticulous in Mandheling production, establishing strict standards and methods for screening defects, including values such as bean density, size, shape, and color. The produced Mandheling required both machine and manual removal of defects to ensure the Mandheling beans were complete, uniform, large, and translucent, while also reducing the earthy and grassy flavors of Mandheling. Legend has it that they glistened golden under the sun, hence the name "Golden Mandheling."

Indonesian green bean grading is primarily based on the number of defective beans, with size 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 that in a 300g sample, the total number of defective beans must be less than 11. The Lintong Mandheling coffee in FrontStreet Coffee's staple bean series is G1, processed using the wet-hulling method, which is the conventional version of Indonesian Mandheling flavor.

PWN Company, which pursues extreme screening, purchases Mandheling green beans of 18 mesh or above, with defect count less than 3 in a 300g sample, which is the G1 grade—the highest grade of Indonesian green beans. Subsequently, they strictly follow standards for one machine selection plus three manual selections of defective beans, ensuring the shape and size of Mandheling coffee beans are uniform. Additionally, before packaging, PWN Company places the green beans in machines for density and color sorting, making the Golden Mandheling uniform in color and translucent.

Hand-poured Mandheling only has a burnt, bitter taste? Perhaps you didn't brew it well!

FrontStreet Coffee's brewing parameters are based on the characteristics of coffee beans, the degree of roast, and the flavor profile. Mandheling belongs to the category of dark-roasted, bitter-tasting coffee. FrontStreet Coffee's baristas choose the KONO filter cup to brew beans with such rich mouthfeel. Compared to V60, the KONO filter cup has a smooth curved surface with weaker exhaust effect, and its straight ribs cover only one-quarter of the filter cup, allowing the coffee layers and hot water to form an immersion extraction, resulting in a more rounded and mellow coffee taste. The KONO filter cup is also suitable for coffees like Brazil's Queen Estate Coffee and Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 Coffee.

Dark roasting makes the internal structure of coffee beans loose. We can easily crush them with a gentle pinch, which indicates that after grinding into powder, they have strong water absorption. To avoid the coffee powder releasing excessive bitter substances after absorbing water, FrontStreet Coffee will adjust the grind to be coarser and use lower temperature water for hand-pouring.

The grind degree is one of the most critical factors affecting coffee taste. After coffee beans are ground into powder and come into contact with hot water, they release a large amount of water-soluble flavor substances. FrontStreet Coffee adjusts the grind degree using a tool—China No. 20 0.85mm standard sieve. For medium-light roasted coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee consistently uses a 75-80% pass-through rate, while for medium-dark roasted coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee uses 70-75%. Compared to light-roasted coffee, the internal structure of medium-dark roasted Mandheling beans is looser, thus having better water absorption and easily releasing large-molecule bitter substances. To avoid over-extraction, FrontStreet Coffee chooses a grind coarseness with a 70% pass-through rate using the No. 20 standard sieve.

Water temperature plays a similar role to grind degree. The higher the water temperature, the higher the coffee extraction efficiency, and the easier it is to release various substance components, resulting in higher concentration. If near-boiling hot water is used for brewing, it's easy to extract unpleasant bitter substances. Therefore, when brewing medium-dark roasted coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee uses different brewing parameters than for light-roasted beans. The caramelization reaction is greater than in light-roasted beans, so it's easier to release large-molecule bitter substances. To avoid extracting too many impurities, FrontStreet Coffee will lower the water temperature slightly. For light-roasted coffee, the brewing water temperature is 91-93°C, while for medium-dark roasted coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee recommends 87-88°C.

Recommended brewing water temperature: 87-88°C

Coffee powder: 15 grams

Powder to water ratio: 1:15

Grind degree: Medium-coarse grind (70% pass-through rate with China standard No. 20 sieve)

The brewing method uses a three-stage pouring technique, divided into three stages to better express the rich mouthfeel and caramel sweetness of Golden Mandheling coffee.

First stage: Pour 30ml for blooming. This pour completely wets the coffee powder for degassing, to better extract the coffee's flavor substances in subsequent stages. Second stage: Pour 100ml. This stage mainly brings out the golden foam of Mandheling and raises the powder layer. Final stage: Gently pour 95ml in the center. This can enhance the coffee's sweetness, overall expressing a rich, mellow mouthfeel with caramel sweetness and flavors of chocolate and nuts.

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Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473