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Differences Between Indonesian Golden Mandheling and Mandheling Coffee Beans: Flavor Profile of Pour-Over Mandheling Coffee

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, Where does Mandheling come from? Mandheling originally refers to a tribal name in Indonesia. After Japanese soldiers returned from Indonesia's colonial period, they couldn't forget the delicious local coffee. Through their trade connections, they asked locals to help collect high-quality coffee beans, including this particular Mandheling variety. The Japanese developed a deep appreciation for this coffee

Friends who enjoy rich, bitter-flavored coffee must have heard of "Mandheling" coffee. Its solid, mellow texture, coupled with a unique herbal spice aroma, has become a classic in the hearts of many older generation coffee enthusiasts. Among them, Mandheling coffees with different flavor profiles are classified into various types, such as the "Golden Mandheling" on FrontStreet Coffee's bean list. In this article, FrontStreet Coffee will compare the differences between Golden Mandheling and regular Mandheling.

Where does Mandheling come from?

Although Mandheling coffee originates from Indonesia, its fame came from Japan.

The name "Mandheling" originated from a mispronunciation of the Mandheling tribe in northwestern Sumatra, Indonesia. According to legend, during Japan's occupation of Indonesia in World War II, a Japanese soldier tasted incredibly fragrant coffee at a café. When he asked the owner the coffee's name, the owner mistakenly thought he was asking "Where are you from?" and replied with his tribe's name: "Mandheling." After the war, when the soldier returned to Japan, he remembered the delicious coffee was called "Mandheling" and commissioned locals to import 15,000 kilograms of Mandheling coffee from Sumatra. It became extremely popular after being introduced to the Japanese market. That local was actually the owner of Indonesia's famous PWN company (Pwani Coffee Company), which was also the first company to export Mandheling coffee to Japan. FrontStreet Coffee has been importing their PWN Golden Mandheling coffee for many years.

What is Golden Mandheling coffee?

PWN is the abbreviation for Indonesia's famous green bean merchant, Pwani Coffee Company. The English name "Golden Mandheling" was registered as a trademark by PWN Company long ago, making "Golden Mandheling" exclusive to PWN. Many Golden Mandheling coffees on the market that don't specify PWN Golden Mandheling only reference the screening system used by PWN for Golden Mandheling coffee beans, but they still haven't achieved the meticulous "five trials and six victories" screening process that PWN performs. PWN Company takes even more extreme strictness by conducting unified machine-based density color sorting after four manual screenings, finally presenting Mandheling coffee beans with uniform color and consistent bean shape. This means that PWN Green Bean Company conducts 5 screenings to ensure the initial quality of their Golden Mandheling.

How to identify if your Golden Mandheling comes from PWN Company?

The Golden Mandheling purchased by FrontStreet Coffee comes with PWN Company's factory certificate and green bean gunny sacks with a clear "PWN Company" logo, printed with "PWN GOLDEN MANDHELING TRIPLE PICKED Grade 1 PROD OF INDONESIA 30KGS NET." These two Golden Mandheling identifiers are displayed at FrontStreet Coffee's Dongshankou store, so friends who have the opportunity to visit can take note! If you're unsure whether you've bought authentic PWN Mandheling, you might ask the seller to provide the certificate or coffee gunny sacks.

FrontStreet Coffee conducted a cupping comparison between regular Mandheling from the Lindong region and PWN Golden Mandheling. Both coffees displayed herbal plants, cinnamon spice, chocolate, nuts, and a rich, mellow texture. However, the Golden Mandheling had clearer sweetness and restrained, gentle fruit acidity. As the temperature decreased, it revealed notes of cream, walnut, melon, and herbal aromas, with an incredibly rich aftertaste.

The flavor of Mandheling comes from the Wet Hulling method

Indonesia has humidity levels between 70-90% year-round, with frequent typhoons and annual rainfall even reaching over 2000mm. Such harsh weather conditions make it impossible to adopt the 2-3 week sun-drying method used in Africa. The washed process is not only time-consuming but also requires more labor costs and water resources, which Indonesia, with its focus on mass production, cannot afford. Therefore, they developed a unique semi-washed method - Wet Hulling.

Coffee cherries with removed skin and pulp are directly poured into a pool for brief fermentation of several hours. At this point, a small amount of mucilage still remains on the bean shell, which is removed through brushing. Next, the parchment coffee is dried. The first drying only needs to reach 30-40% moisture content, about 2-3 days, after which coffee farmers sell the green beans to buyers. The buyers will directly use machines to hull the semi-dry parchment coffee to obtain the innermost green beans. Because the hulling machine uses significant friction to tear off the parchment layer tightly attached to the green beans, and through the stirring of this friction, the green beans are more easily crushed or squeezed, especially at both ends, forming small gaps and creating what are known as "elephant foot beans."

The "naked beans" without the parchment layer dry very quickly. Due to the shortened drying time, the fermentation period and acidity of the coffee beans are reduced, but the thickness increases, with distinct caramel and fruit aromas, slightly woody and herbal notes - this is the classic "terroir flavor" of Sumatran coffee. FrontStreet Coffee believes that the wet-hulled Mandheling from the Lindong region has these characteristics, which is why it was added to FrontStreet Coffee's small-packaged daily bean selection, allowing everyone to have a taste.

How to brew PWN Golden Mandheling coffee for better flavor?

Some friends, after purchasing coffee beans, don't know how to brew them properly, worrying about poor extraction and wasting the coffee beans. Here, FrontStreet Coffee will use the parameters from our store as an example to explain how to manually brew Golden Mandheling coffee.

Before brewing, FrontStreet Coffee first confirms the freshness of the coffee beans, ensuring we use beans roasted within 1 month. Freshly roasted Golden Mandheling coffee beans need 7-10 days of degassing to enter their optimal flavor window. FrontStreet Coffee hopes every customer can enjoy the full aroma of the coffee, so we only ship coffee beans roasted within 5 days, allowing everyone to receive them during the complete flavor window.

Roasted coffee beans expand and have a loose texture. When ground, they easily absorb more water and accelerate the release of various substances. To avoid over-extraction, FrontStreet Coffee uses a medium grind size and slightly lower water temperature to reduce the release of bitter macromolecules from the coffee during extraction.

For this brewing, FrontStreet Coffee's barista aims to highlight the rich, clean, and aromatic characteristics of Golden Mandheling, using a KONO dripper for extraction. Also a conical dripper, the KONO has significantly fewer flow ribs than the V60, with the upper part being a smooth curved surface that allows the filter paper to fit more closely. This restricts upward airflow, forcing hot water to flow downward only, creating a siphon-like extraction effect that allows the aromatic substances in the coffee grounds to release more fully, thereby enhancing the rich texture.

Golden Mandheling Coffee Pour-over Parameters: 87-88°C water temperature, Medium grind (70% pass-through rate on China Standard #20 sieve), Coffee grounds: 15g, Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15, Three-stage water pouring

Use twice the amount of water as the coffee grounds to wet the coffee bed, forming a dome for a 30-second bloom. Then, using a small water stream, pour in circles from inside out until reaching 125g, then pause. Wait for the coffee bed to drop to half the height of the dripper, then continue with the same fine stream for the third stage until reaching 225g. Remove the dripper once all the coffee liquid has filtered through, which should take about 2 minutes. Finally, shake the coffee liquid in the pot evenly and enjoy~

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