The Historical Connection Between Mandheling Coffee and Arabica: The Intricate Relationship Between Arabica and Mandheling Coffee Beans

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FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Mandheling Coffee

Mandheling is not actually a coffee bean variety, but rather a general term or a code name.

Historically, Mandheling coffee has a long history. In the 17th century, the Dutch introduced Arabica coffee seedlings to Indonesia for the first time. 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 many years and introduce Robusta coffee trees from Africa, which have stronger disease resistance.

Indonesia consists of 17,508 large and small islands. The main coffee-producing regions include Java Island, Sulawesi Island, and Sumatra Island. A large portion of the varieties grown there are Robusta. Mandheling, also known as "Sumatra Coffee," belongs to the Arabica species (with some Timor varieties), giving most Mandheling coffee its characteristic rich bitterness, excellent body, and slight chocolate flavor. Therefore, any coffee grown in Sumatra Island, regardless of the bean variety, can be called "Mandheling Coffee."

This explains why you might occasionally see a bean description that reads: "Mandheling - Variety: Caturra - Processing: Washed/Natural." However, Sumatra Island is one of Indonesia's three major islands, with many different estates and varieties distributed across it, making it impossible to list them all individually.

Both Lake Toba in North Sumatra and Lake Tawar in Aceh produce Mandheling coffee, which is known as the famous "Two Lakes, Double Mandheling." The common characteristic of the "Two Lakes, Double Mandheling" is their thick and mellow flavor. The difference lies in the fact that Lake Toba's Mandheling is more subdued, deep, and even has a grass jelly flavor, while Lake Tawar Mandheling has brighter fruit acidity and sometimes carries a cedar or woody flavor.

Knowledge Point: Mandheling is not a region name, place name, port name, nor a coffee variety name. It is the phonetic translation of the Indonesian Mandheling ethnic group.

In Brief

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