The Story of Sumatra Mandheling Coffee Beans - Flavor Profile of Lindong Mandheling & Golden Mandheling

When it comes to Sumatran Mandheling coffee, it features low acidity, high concentration, and grass-like aromas, delivering a rich and intense coffee flavor that leaves a lasting impression. It's highly recommended for those who dislike acidity. FrontStreet Coffee has been a loyal fan of Mandheling coffee since opening, and currently offers four varieties: Lintong Mandheling, Golden Mandheling, Tiger Mandheling, and Aged Mandheling. FrontStreet Coffee will now explain the differences between these four Mandheling coffees and explore the origin of the name 'Mandheling'.

Sumatra is the largest island in Indonesia, located on the equator and featuring a tropical rainforest climate with high temperatures, humidity, and abundant rainfall. Coffee smallholders typically grow their coffee in primitive mountainous areas where water resources are precious, leading to the development of the unique "wet hulling" (Giling Basah) segmented drying processing method. This processing technique imparts Sumatran coffee with flavors distinct from other regions. Among Indonesian coffee exports, 25% are Arabica, while the remaining 75% are Robusta. Only the fine Arabica coffees from northern Sumatra are marketed under the names Lintong and Mandheling.

Origin of the Mandheling Name

Mandheling is not a region name, place name, port name, or coffee variety name—so how did it get its name? In fact, it's a phonetic error of the Indonesian Mandheling ethnic group. During World War II when Japan occupied Indonesia, a Japanese soldier tasted exceptionally aromatic coffee at a café and asked the owner for the coffee's name. The owner misunderstood and thought he was asking about his ethnicity, so he replied: "Mandheling." After the war, the soldier recalled the "Mandheling" coffee he had in Indonesia and commissioned an Indonesian coffee exporter to ship 15 tons to Japan, where it became surprisingly popular. The name Mandheling thus spread, and the café owner who answered the Japanese soldier was none other than the now world-renowned PWN Coffee Company. FrontStreet Coffee's popular Golden Mandheling comes precisely from PWN Company.

PWN Coffee Company

Pawani Medan (N.V. Pawani Medan,简称 PWN) was established in 1957 and deals in the export of Indonesian products including coffee, rubber, cinnamon, cloves, and patchouli oil. It was the first company in Indonesia to export coffee from North Sumatra and the first to make "Mandheling Coffee" famous in Japan. Since 1977, the company has focused on exporting quality Sumatran Arabica Mandheling Grade 1 and Robusta AP-I Grade 2 coffee beans, with main export destinations being Japan, Taiwan, and the United States. Exports to Japan and Taiwan account for over 95%, where "PWN" has become synonymous with "quality assurance." Pawani Coffee Company holds the "Golden Mandheling" trademark, forcing Japanese companies to register the alternative "Gold Top Mandheling" trademark.

Mandheling Coffee Processing Method

Wet-Hulling is the traditional processing method for Sumatran coffee in Indonesia. It involves removing the parchment hull when the beans are still at a high moisture content of 30-50% during drying, then continuing to dry them to solve the problem of overly long drying times. Since the drying time is reduced to two to four days, the fermentation period of the coffee beans is shortened, acidity is significantly reduced, while body increases markedly, with prominent caramel and fruit aromas, and even herbal or grassy notes and woody aromas—these are the distinctive regional fragrances unique to Sumatra.

However, the impact of early hull removal means that when beans are half-dried, they lose their last two protective layers (note: the four protective layers of coffee beans are: pulp, mucilage, parchment, and silver skin), equivalent to being exposed naked to the sun. Although wet hulling solves the drying time problem, it significantly increases the probability of contamination by mold, fungi, and yeast. Paradoxically, these factors actually become key elements in creating Mandheling's special aroma.

Another characteristic brought by wet hulling is the higher probability of so-called "elephant beans" or broken beans. Since the hulling machine removes parchment when beans are still in a moist, semi-soft stage, the fragile, soft, moist beans are very susceptible to mechanical pressure that causes them to crack, break, or suffer surface damage, forming what are known as elephant beans or scratched beans, which diminishes the appearance quality of the green beans.

FrontStreet Coffee's Four Mandheling Coffees

1. Golden Mandheling

Mandheling is a premium coffee among Indonesian coffees, and Golden Mandheling is the finest premium among Mandhelings. Golden Mandheling consists of carefully hand-selected full, glossy Mandheling coffee beans—truly an exceptional beauty among coffees. To address the problem of high defect rates in Mandheling, Japanese companies long ago began implementing meticulous quality control with four manual selections to eliminate defective beans. Unfortunately, "Golden Mandheling" was trademarked by Indonesia's Pawani Coffee Company, making Golden Mandheling exclusive to PWN. PWN was also one of the first companies to sell Mandheling coffee beans to Japan. PWN's Golden Mandheling is the true Golden Mandheling in the real sense. Golden Mandheling bearing the PWN imprint undergoes three manual screenings and one machine selection, resulting in beautiful beans that are also very uniform, producing cleaner coffee when roasted. PWN Company registered the Golden Mandheling trademark, meaning only Golden Mandheling produced by PWN Company can be considered true "Golden Mandheling." Golden Mandheling comes from Mandheling, and can be understood as selected Mandheling—this is FrontStreet Coffee's reason for selecting it. FrontStreet Coffee cup-tests 300-500 groups of beans annually, selecting one-fifth with the most regionally representative flavors, and Golden Mandheling is a representative work of this selection. We believe it excellently represents the Sumatran style.

2. Lintong Mandheling

Lake Toba is currently the world's largest and deepest volcanic lake, with a depth of nearly 500 meters. The entire Lake Toba stretches 100 kilometers long and 30 kilometers wide, surrounded by a unique geographical environment at elevations above 900 meters. The mineral-rich soil left by volcanic eruptions provides the perfect soil and climate for coffee cultivation around Lake Toba. The Lake Toba region is vast, with most coffee trees growing on undulating highlands covered with ferns, mostly grown without shade. The coffee production area—the main region for the world-famous Mandheling—is located in the Lintong district southwest of Lake Toba. Until the 1990s, cultivation gradually moved to higher altitude areas. Currently, the well-known Lintong region coffee is grown at average elevations between 1,200 to 1,500 meters. Coffee is grown by smallholders under shade trees, with wet-hulled processing exhibiting unique flavors and deep, lively richness.

3. Tiger Mandheling

In Aceh, coffee is the region's second-largest export economic crop. Local estimates suggest about 60,000 small-scale coffee farmers, each owning approximately 1-2 hectares of coffee cultivation land. Traditional Indonesian coffee trade follows a multi-point supply chain model, starting from farmers and passing through multiple intermediaries before gradually accumulating into large export shipments. In Indonesia's coffee trading system, direct trade where a single window collects from farmers and arranges exports is quite rare.

The requirement for Tiger Mandheling is that it must have traditional Chinese medicinal herbal aromas, and only Mandheling with sieve size 17 or above and a defect rate below 4% can be called Tiger.

4. Aged Mandheling

Aged coffee beans refer to green beans that achieve natural aging through extended storage time (typically 2-3 years). These changes include reduced acidity, color changes, and thickened bean texture. Storage conditions must be cool and ventilated. Due to the dimmer storage environment and longer time, aged coffee often carries complex flavors similar to mold or the so-called burlap or leather notes. Aged Mandheling is characterized by honey-like sweetness. Successful aged processing eliminates the less elegant acidity of Mandheling. Acidic components mature into sugars, making the coffee smoother and sweeter to drink.

How FrontStreet Coffee Brews Four Mandheling Coffees

Dripper: KONO

Water Temperature: 88-89°C

Grind Size: Coarse sugar size

Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15

FrontStreet Coffee's Three-Step Brewing Method: Use twice the coffee powder amount for blooming—that is, bloom with 30g water for 30 seconds. Pour with small水流 in circles to 125g, then segment. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop. The total extraction time is 2 minutes.

Brewing Flavors of Four Mandheling Coffees:

[Lintong Mandheling] Herbal, chocolate, caramel, overall well-balanced;

[Golden Mandheling] Nuts, spices, herbal plants, licorice, chocolate, caramel, clean and gentle flavor;

[Tiger Mandheling] Nuts, cream, dark chocolate, caramel, traditional Chinese medicine, noticeable sweetness, relatively clean and clear flavor;

[Aged Mandheling] Ripe pu-erh tea, caramel, herbal, chocolate, lower acidity.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473