What Are the Characteristics of the World's Top 10 Mandheling Coffee? What's the Difference Between Mandheling and Golden Mandheling? What Does G1 Grade Mean?

FrontStreet Coffee's bean list carries two single-origin coffees named Mandheling. One is FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling from the Daily Selection Series, and the other is FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling, which often appears in articles. Customers therefore often ask how the two differ. So today, FrontStreet Coffee will explain the differences between FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling and FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling.

What Is "Mandheling"?

First, we need to be clear about what "Mandheling" is. It is neither a specific coffee variety, nor a particular growing region, and certainly not the name of any estate or cooperative. It refers to coffee produced on the island of Sumatra. The story is by now familiar. There is an ethnic group on Sumatra called the Mandailing, whose livelihood depended mainly on coffee growing and trade. Through a mistake, coffee produced in Sumatra was named "Mandheling," a mispronunciation of Mandailing. Coffee exported under the name "Mandheling" then became widely popular in Japan, and from that point on, coffee beans produced in Sumatra followed suit and were sold under the popular name.

So Mandheling is a mistranslation of Mandailing, and it represents coffee produced in Sumatra.

How Do FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling and Golden Mandheling Differ?

First, their origin. The Mandheling from the Daily Selection Series is produced in the Lintong mountainous area around Lake Toba, in the north-central part of Sumatra. The altitude of the Lintong region is 1,100 to 1,600 meters. The most classic Mandheling flavor that people talk about comes from Lintong, which is why FrontStreet Coffee chose this classic Mandheling from this region as part of its daily selection, also known as FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling. FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling, on the other hand, is produced on Gayo Mountain in the northwestern part of Sumatra. The name Gayo Mountain comes from the local Gayo ethnic group. The altitude of this region is 1,300 to 1,600 meters, slightly higher than Lintong, and it has been a popular Indonesian growing area in recent years because the coffee produced there is cleaner than that from Lintong, making it a new favorite among many specialty coffee enthusiasts.

Second, the varieties differ somewhat. FrontStreet Coffee's Indonesian Mandheling, as a daily bean, is a blend of two varieties, Tim Tim and Ateng, while FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling is a single Arabica variety, Ateng. Ateng is the Indonesian name for the localized Catimor, meaning Ateng equals Catimor. Both FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling and FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling are the highest grade coffee beans from Sumatra. Indonesia's grading standards are based on a combination of size and defect rate, with the highest grade being G1. The size requirement is that the beans reach 18 screen size, and the defect requirement is that no more than 3 defects are allowed per 300 g of green coffee beans.

Because local sunlight hours are short, conventional processing methods that need long sun exposure, such as natural and washed processing, are not suitable for the region. The method used locally is mainly wet hulling. Wet hulling has one disadvantage, however: inconsistent quality. The best-known example is a violent dehulling step during processing, which can easily crush the beans as they are removed, turning them into defective beans or elephant beans. Local coffee therefore generally undergoes manual hand-sorting to remove defects and elephant beans, and most G1 grade Mandheling goes through three rounds of manual sorting. FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling is a perfect G1 grade model.

Although FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling is also G1 grade, it goes beyond that. The PWN company, which produces FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling, is committed to creating the highest quality Mandheling, different from other Mandhelings, so the production standards for FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling are stricter. The size standard for FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling must reach 19 screen size or above, while the defect standard is the same as before. The difference is that, before hand-sorting the defective beans, FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling also passes through a color sorter.

The color sorter screens out the defective beans that are hard to detect by eye, and then, after three rounds of manual removal of defective beans, the resulting Mandheling not only has a lower defect rate but also very uniform color and size. Below is a comparison of the two green bean images, showing that the differences between them are quite significant.

Left: FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling green beans. Right: FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling green beans.

This may be what people often say: some people score 100 because they can only score 100, while others score 100 because the score limit is only 100. Finally, the flavor. To better interpret the "Mandheling flavor," FrontStreet Coffee uses a dark roast for both Mandhelings.

Cupping is then used to taste the coffee, avoiding the influence of manual brewing on extraction. FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling daily bean shows excellent cupping performance, with flavors of pine, chocolate, toasted bread, and Mandheling's unique dense, mellow aroma, and a very full-bodied mouthfeel. FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling tastes cleaner, without too many herbal or other off-flavors, with flavors of chocolate, spices, pine, and nuts, a clean and full-bodied mouthfeel, and an excellent caramel sweetness in the aftertaste.

Both are excellent. FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling daily bean directly showcases the Indonesian regional flavor, while FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling has higher cleanliness on top of that original foundation. After a direct comparison, FrontStreet Coffee believes each has its own merits, and the choice depends on which type you prefer.

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FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Mandheling is one of the most famous Arabica coffees in the world, also known as Sumatran coffee, and for the fullest expression of its wild, herbal character FrontStreet Coffee recommends FrontStreet PWN Golden Mandheling. PWN buys only high-quality Mandheling green beans and, after purchasing, sorts them by machine and by hand to pick out full, defect-free beans, so everything it produces is specialty grade; the Golden Mandheling is its flagship. The beans are even in size, large, and bright, with a low defect rate. Medium-dark roasted, they carry rich roasting aroma, and the brewed black coffee is clean with a full body, which makes it ideal for anyone who does not like acidic coffee.

FrontStreet PWN Golden Mandheling shows its best side in a pour-over. FrontStreet Coffee suggests 87 to 88 °C water, 15 g of coffee, a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, a grind about the texture of coarse granulated sugar, and a three-stage pour, which brings out the thick body and caramel sweetness. Bloom with 30 ml to wet all the grounds and let them degas, so the later stages extract the flavor compounds more effectively. The second pour is 100 ml, mainly to flush out the golden foam and raise the coffee bed. The final pour is a gentle 95 ml down the center, which lifts the sweetness and rounds out the full body, the caramel sweetness, and the chocolate and nut flavors.

Many people who love Mandheling eventually want to use it on an espresso machine, and here FrontStreet Coffee suggests its most repurchased blend, FrontStreet Classic Blend, which layers a medium-dark Mandheling over the creamy, nutty base of Brazilian coffee. Butter, roasted chestnut, and caramel stand out; the Mandheling lifts the body of the whole cup and adds sandalwood, herbal, and spice notes, and a little Robusta raises the richness of the crema, so pouring latte art or building a layered Dirty is easy.