The Correct Pour-Over Method for Making Mandheling Coffee, Dark Roast Pour-Over Coffee Brewing Techniques, How to Make a Sweet and Clean Cup of Pour-Over Coffee

What is FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling Coffee?

It is a type of coffee bean originating from Indonesia, with its story beginning during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia in World War II. At that time, a Japanese soldier went to a local café and drank an incredibly fragrant cup of coffee. When he asked the owner for the coffee's name, the owner mistakenly thought the soldier was asking where he was from, so the owner replied: "Mandailing." After the war, the soldier recalled that cup of Mandheling coffee he had in Indonesia and found a local Indonesian coffee merchant to help him ship 15 tons to Japan. When asked about the name, the soldier mistakenly said "Mandehling" instead of "Mandailing." Due to this "double misunderstanding," the term "Mandehling" was born. And because Mandheling coffee became extremely popular in Japan, the name Mandheling spread from there.

FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling

Today's featured Mandheling for this tutorial belongs to the premium category of Mandhelings - FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling. It is a product from Indonesia's PWN Coffee Company (the Golden Mandheling trademark is owned by PWN Company). Imported Golden Mandheling coffee beans come with a PWN company certificate of authenticity. FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling coffee beans are produced in the Gayo Highlands of Aceh, Grade G1, and undergo three manual selection processes to ensure large, full beans (19 screen) with minimal defects. They exhibit a very clean, rich mouthfeel and high sweetness, representing high-quality Mandheling coffee.

How to Brew Clean and Delicious FrontStreet Coffee Mandheling

Why do people often find their home-brewed Mandheling coffee very bitter? How can you brew a clean and delicious FrontStreet Coffee Mandheling? Today, we'll teach you how. FrontStreet Coffee's approach to brewing Mandheling coffee aims to express a rich yet clean mouthfeel, highlighting caramel, chocolate, and its characteristic herbal aromatic flavors, while avoiding any unpleasant bitterness. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee will explain the equipment selection and important brewing parameters, using FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling for demonstration.

Equipment and Parameters

For the dripper choice, FrontStreet Coffee selected the Kono Meimon dripper. The biggest characteristic of the Kono dripper is that its ribs extend from the bottom to the middle, while the upper part has smooth dripper walls. This way, when the filter paper fits against the dripper, water cannot "secretly" bypass the coffee grounds and escape, increasing the richness of the mouthfeel. By the way, this dripper is not only suitable for brewing FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling but also适用于 for other rich-flavored coffee beans like FrontStreet Coffee's Brazilian Queen Estate and FrontStreet Coffee's Blue Mountain Coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee uses 15g of coffee grounds. The amount of coffee grounds is not necessarily better with more or less - it depends on the specific dripper specifications. FrontStreet Coffee uses a 1-2 person dripper, and 15-20g is a reasonable amount of grounds for brewing. Brewing with amounts outside this range may be somewhat difficult.

For the brewing ratio, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using 1:15. Although some might suggest using 1:13 or an even smaller ratio, FrontStreet Coffee has mentioned in previous articles that concentration and richness are not necessarily related. Moreover, excessive concentration can cause discomfort. Therefore, using a 1:15 ratio can also很好地 express the rich mouthfeel of FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling.

For coffee grind size, FrontStreet Coffee uses a 70% pass rate through a #20 sieve. The grind size for brewing FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling should be slightly coarser than for light roast coffee beans because FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling uses dark roasting, which makes its structure more porous and more likely to absorb water and release coffee substances. If ground to the fineness of light roast beans, it's easy to brew burnt bitterness; if ground even coarser, the coffee will become thin and tasteless, with a mouthfeel as thin as water.

For water temperature selection, FrontStreet Coffee recommends using 87-88°C water for brewing. Similar to the grind size principle, too high a water temperature easily produces burnt bitterness, while too low a temperature makes the coffee taste flat and produces unpleasant sour flavors.

The brewing method uses a three-pour technique. Dividing the water into three pours can better express the rich mouthfeel of FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling coffee and the sweetness of caramel. The specific water distribution is: first pour 30ml for blooming, which completely wets the coffee grounds for degassing to better extract coffee flavor substances in subsequent pours; second pour 100ml; final pour 95ml, which enhances the coffee's sweetness, overall expressing a substantial rich mouthfeel, caramel sweetness, and chocolate and nut flavors.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473