The Spirit of Sumatra Coffee Beans: What Does Courage Mean in Sumatra Coffee

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FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Sumatra Coffee

On February 14, 1942, the Japanese military deployed 320 aircraft for an airborne assault on Palembang, the oil-field region of Sumatra. Less than a month later, the Dutch governor surrendered. On March 15—World Consumer Rights Day—Japanese forces occupied Indonesia. From the occupation of Sumatra until the emperor announced surrender in 1945, they met virtually no large-scale attacks and lived quite comfortably.

One day, a Japanese soldier was drinking coffee at a café in Sumatra and found it quite good. He asked the owner, "What is this?" The owner thought he was being asked, "Where are you from?" and answered, "Mandailing." It is a common human habit: people assume others are most interested in them first, so they instinctively talk about themselves. Perhaps for that reason, he naturally believed he was more noteworthy than the coffee.

Indonesia consists of 17,508 large and small islands with more than 300 ethnic groups. Each group has its own relatively independent character and therefore its own identity. Sumatra was colonized in turn by the British and the Dutch, so the owner had no particularly strong reaction to the arrival of Japanese forces. Even so, the coffee left a deep impression on the Japanese soldier.

After the war, the soldier returned to Japan alive. Recalling the coffee he had drunk in Sumatra, he vaguely remembered that the name seemed to be "Mandheling." So he called a man from Medan named Pwani and asked him to purchase a batch of "Mandheling coffee" on his behalf. The question was: just what was this "Mandheling coffee" that had been passed down through miscommunication?

Mr. Pwani probably began a quick analysis in his mind.

The earliest coffee in Indonesia arrived in 1696, when the Dutch governor in Malabar, India, sent a batch of coffee seedlings to the Dutch governor in Batavia (now Jakarta). This was the first time coffee was planted in Indonesia.

That first batch of seedlings, however, was destroyed by floods.

In 1699, Batavia received another gift. This time the seedlings survived and produced their first harvest in 1701, beginning Indonesia's coffee journey. By then, coffee had already become very popular among Europe's upper class. In 1711, Indonesian coffee began supplying the European market. At the time, Indonesia was the first place outside Africa and Arabia to grow coffee on a large scale.

The Dutch were the "sea coaches," hoping to ship coffee beans to Europe quickly. So in 1718 they transplanted coffee from Java to the Mandailing highlands on the western side of Sumatra. Because it was close to the Indian Ocean, it could save several days of sailing time on the return to Holland. Previously, local farmers had called the coffee produced there Java Mandailing coffee.

Perhaps this is the explanation for the spirit and courage of Sumatra coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If the story of Mandheling has made you want to taste Sumatra for yourself, FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling range is the place to start. FrontStreet PWN Golden Mandheling comes from Indonesia's PWN company and is made to a very strict standard: beans of 18 mesh and above, with fewer than 3 defective beans per 300 g green-bean sample, meeting the highest G1 grade, and further cleaned by three rounds of hand sorting. The result is a cleaner cup with more intense sweetness—and because it is wet-hulled, the beans show the heavy body and the earthy, herbal depth that define Sumatra.

For an everyday version, FrontStreet Lintong Mandheling comes from the Lintong region around Lake Toba and is roasted medium-dark, delivering clove, woody, and spice aromas with a low-acid, minty, thickly sweet finish. Brew it as pour-over with 15 g of coffee at a 1:15 ratio, 87-88°C water, a coarse-sugar grind, and a three-stage pour to bring out its body and caramel sweetness; it also makes a rich espresso. Sumatra also appears in FrontStreet's Classic Blend, where medium-dark Mandheling adds butter, roasted chestnut, caramel, and herbal spice to Brazilian creamy nuttiness, with a touch of Robusta for a fuller crema.