The Origin of Mandheling Coffee Name and Golden Mandheling Bean Origin, Flavor Profile, and Pour-Over Parameters

Many people are familiar with the term "Mandheling," which refers to coffee beans produced in North Sumatra, Indonesia. However, as for why it's called "Mandheling," most people are likely confused. FrontStreet Coffee is here to solve this mystery for you.

Mandheling doesn't specifically refer to a coffee variety or a place name. It was actually a mistranslation of the Mandailing ethnic group who grow coffee, resulting from a series of coincidences.

This story begins during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia in World War II. At that time, a Japanese soldier visited a local café and tasted an incredibly aromatic cup of coffee. When he asked the shop owner for the coffee's name, the owner mistakenly thought the soldier was asking about his ethnicity, so he replied: "Mandailing." After the war, that Japanese soldier recalled the Mandheling coffee he had tasted in Indonesia and found a local Indonesian coffee merchant to help him ship 15 tons to Japan. When asked about the name, the Japanese soldier mistakenly said "Mandehling" instead of "Mandailing."

It was due to this double misunderstanding that the term "Mandehling" emerged. Since Mandheling coffee became extremely popular in Japan, the name "Mandheling" spread widely. That coffee merchant was none other than the now-renowned PWN Coffee Company.

Therefore, the Golden Mandheling coffee produced by PWN company is considered the finest Mandheling coffee. It undergoes the highest grade selection process—one machine selection and three manual selections—resulting in an extremely low defect rate. The coffee beans are large, full-bodied particles.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee recommends using these brewing parameters: Kono dripper, 86°C water temperature, 15g coffee dose, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, and grind size: 70% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve.

Regular readers of FrontStreet Coffee articles should know that light-roasted and dark-roasted coffee beans require different water temperatures and drippers. The lower water temperature is used to avoid extracting excessive undesirable flavors. When FrontStreet Coffee selects dark roasts, many aromatic compounds have already been released. If we continue to use water temperatures suitable for light roasts, it would lead to over-extraction.

Brewing Technique

FrontStreet Coffee uses a分段式萃取 (segmented extraction) method. First, pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom. Then, using a small water stream, pour in a circular motion until reaching 125g, creating the first segment. When the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop. Wait until the water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed again, then remove the dripper. (Timing starts from the beginning of the bloom) Total extraction time is 2'00".

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473