How to Choose Mandheling Coffee Beans? Is Mandheling a Coffee Variety? Indonesian Lintong Coffee Origin Flavor and Taste Description

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Indonesian Coffee Market Update

NEWS! According to Coffee Finance Network, the export of October-season Indonesian coffee beans is nearly complete, and local available coffee inventory is very scarce. Therefore, the coffee market expects Indonesia's coffee supply issues to persist in the short term. Local coffee farmers and coffee traders are awaiting the arrival of the May season, and Indonesia's coffee trade will be relatively quiet for the next four months.

Sumatra Island

When it comes to Indonesian coffee beans, the first word that comes to mind is Sumatra. Sumatra Island's coffee production accounts for over 70% of all Indonesian exported coffee beans (including Robusta). The lakes Toba and Tawar on the island provide abundant water resources for this region.

The suitable altitude and tropical rainforest climate maintain average temperatures between 25-28°C on the island, with evenly distributed seasons and no dry periods, creating an excellent growing environment for coffee trees. Meanwhile, the rainy season brought by the tropical rainforest climate may affect the harvest of Sumatra's main October coffee season.

Is Mandheling a Coffee Variety?

Regarding Indonesian coffee, the question FrontStreet Coffee is asked most frequently is: "Is Mandheling coffee a coffee variety?" No, it is not. The original meaning of Mandheling refers to the Mandheling ethnic group in the Tapanuli region of northwestern Sumatra. When a Japanese person asked what the coffee here was called, the locals thought they were asking which ethnic group they were from, and immediately replied "Mandheling." Since then, all Arabica coffee beans produced in Sumatra have been called Mandheling coffee (a transliteration of this ethnic group), and only Arabica coffee beans produced on Sumatra Island can be called Mandheling coffee.

The local person who answered "Mandheling" also saw the business opportunity and founded Indonesia's renowned green coffee company, Pwani Coffee Company—that's right, the company behind FrontStreet Coffee's beloved PWN Golden Mandheling. Nearly all high-quality Mandheling coffee from the island is acquired by this company. Truly a case of unintentional success, this local person never expected that a small misunderstanding would make them a major player in Indonesia's specialty coffee industry.

Lintong Coffee Region

The Lintong coffee region is located in the Lintong mountains of northern Sumatra near Lake Toba. This region is situated on plateau mountain terrain at elevations of 1000-1500 meters. Within its territory are numerous volcanoes and volcanic lakes, providing rich volcanic soil for this region. Combined with the local tropical rainforest climate and abundant year-round rainfall, it offers the most suitable geographical and climatic conditions for coffee cultivation.

Lintong Mandheling does not focus on screening, resulting in varying bean sizes. Less refined processing can easily lead to inconsistent coffee quality, but this does not affect the flavor expression of Lintong region coffee beans. Although coffee beans from this region overall lack cleanliness, they can express the rich body, strong flavors, and unique herbal spice characteristics of Indonesian coffee regions. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee has included the Lintong region in its daily coffee series.

Must-Have for Beginners!

FrontStreet Coffee's Daily Coffee Series represents the "signature flavors" from major coffee-growing regions. Each daily coffee region has highly recognizable basic flavors, making it a fresh-roasted Arabica coffee bean with excellent value for money. When you're unsure about your taste preferences but afraid of spending too much money on something you might not like, FrontStreet Coffee's Daily Coffee Series is undoubtedly the perfect choice.

Coffee Bean Processing Method

Wet Hulling is a rapid method for processing coffee beans, which is one of the reasons why Indonesian coffee flavors are rich, strong, and distinctive. Generally, coffee beans require an average of 2-3 weeks to dry, but Indonesia's annual humidity ranges between 70-90%, with continuous typhoons and heavy rainfall. In such a humid climate, drying coffee becomes a significant problem.

To pursue more efficient economic returns, local coffee farmers created the wet hulling processing method. It differs significantly from the washed method: after removing the skin and pulp, the parchment and mucilage are retained for fermentation in water pools, then the mucilage is washed away. The beans are sun-dried with parchment for 2-3 days until reaching 20-24% moisture content, then the parchment is removed for the final drying step to 13-15% moisture content.

When using the wet hulling method, because the semi-hard, semi-soft moist green beans are easily damaged when the mucilage parchment layer is removed, the beans get injured and crack into a shape resembling goat hooves, commonly known as "goat hoof beans." Goat hoof beans can be considered one of the characteristics of Mandheling coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee's Roasting Experience

Preheat the roaster to 200°C, set the damper to 3, adjust heat to 160°C, keep the damper unchanged. The turning point occurs at 1 minute 45 seconds, maintain the heat. At 140°C, reduce heat to 1 and adjust the damper to 4; at 5 minutes 8 seconds, the bean surface turns yellow, the grassy aroma completely disappears, entering the dehydration stage.

Dehydration completes at 7 minutes 30 seconds, reduce heat to 110°C, ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface, the toast aroma clearly transforms into coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this point, listen carefully for the sound of first crack. First crack begins at 9 minutes 00 seconds, fully open the damper to 5, develop for 4 minutes after first crack, then drop at 202°C.

FrontStreet Coffee's Brewing Experience

FrontStreet Coffee recommends using a Kono dripper to enhance the body when brewing high-body coffees, but many people report they don't have a Kono at home, only a V60. So how should you brew high-body coffee with a V60? First, we use 15g of coffee beans, adjust to a medium-fine grind (78% pass-through rate on a #20 standard sieve), then use water at 88°C, with a powder-to-water ratio of 1:15. When pouring water, try to pour in slow circles—how slow? 3-4ml per second.

FrontStreet Coffee's segmented extraction method: First, use 30g of water to fully saturate the coffee grounds into a "hamburger" shape and bloom for 30 seconds; For the second pour, at 55 seconds on the timer, pour water to 125g, then stop and wait for the water level to drop to 2/3 of the coffee bed before starting the third pour; For the third pour, at 1 minute 30 seconds on the timer, pour water to 225g. Wait for the coffee to completely finish dripping, with a total extraction time of 2 minutes 01 seconds. After extraction is complete, gently swirl the server to ensure the coffee is well mixed before tasting.

Brewing Flavor

The entry is rich with herbal aromatics, the mid-section features the slight acidity of dark chocolate, and the finish has caramel-like notes, with a licorice-like aftertaste in the aftertaste.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat, WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473