What is the Quality Level of Mandheling Coffee? What's the Difference Between Golden Mandheling and Regular Mandheling? Why Does Mandheling Have Herbal Notes? What Makes Mandheling Special Among the World's Top 10 Premium Coffees?

When it comes to Mandheling coffee, FrontStreet Coffee believes that beyond its rich, mellow texture and deep caramel notes, people also think of a distinctive "Mandheling flavor": its herbal character.

Mandheling's herbal notes mainly refer to aromas reminiscent of herbs, soil, and wood. They emerge after the rich fragrance, distinctive and wild. Because of this trait, Mandheling has always been a polarizing bean. Those who love this aroma adore Mandheling, while those who don't tend to dislike it strongly. In recent years, though, many friends have noticed that the herbal flavor in Mandheling has become milder, or at least less obvious than it once was. So plenty of them have started digging into the origins, wanting to understand why this herbal flavor has weakened and where it comes from in the first place.

The Origins of Mandheling

As with the formation of any coffee flavor, the reason Mandheling carries herbal notes comes down to three factors: variety, growing environment, and processing method. First, it helps to understand that Mandheling is not a specific coffee variety but rather a name for all Arabica coffee grown on the island of Sumatra. Through a fortunate misunderstanding, Arabica beans from Sumatra were sold as "Mandheling" and became popular. Since then, Arabica from the island has often been sold under the Mandheling name. This is a story FrontStreet Coffee often shares, and our friends have likely heard it many times, so we won't go into it further here.

Sumatra's coffee-growing history is long: the Dutch expanded coffee cultivation to the island as early as the 18th century. On Sumatra, the main growing regions cluster around Lake Toba and Lake Tawar. Lake Toba is known for the Lintong region, while Lake Tawar is famous for the Gayo Mountain region. Their elevations run from roughly 1100 to 1600 meters, ideal altitudes for coffee. That is why FrontStreet Coffee selected Lintong's Mandheling as the representative of Indonesian staple coffee in our daily series, while FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling comes from the Gayo Mountain region.

Coffee Varieties in Indonesia

As at many origins, the Dutch first planted purebred Arabica varieties such as Typica and Bourbon on the island. Not long after, however, Arabica plants fell victim to rust disease, and the Indonesian authorities had to keep introducing new varieties to maintain production. Over time, Indonesia became a melting pot of coffee varieties.

The more widely planted varieties on the island include Ateng, TimTim, Typica, Caturra, and Robusta. In Mandheling coffee, Ateng and TimTim are the most common. Both are hybrids of Arabica and Robusta: put simply, Ateng is Indonesia's local Catimor, while TimTim is Indonesia's local Tim. Because both carry Robusta genes, they naturally show some of Robusta's characteristic herbal and woody notes, though relatively less intense. (The image shows the Ateng variety.)

Wet Hulling

The most commonly cited reason for Mandheling's strong herbal flavor is actually the region's unique processing method: wet hulling. The process generally follows these steps. First, a pulper removes the coffee cherry's skin and pulp, and the beans are washed. The beans are then moved outdoors to dry. After about 3-4 days, moisture drops to roughly 30%-40%, and a huller removes the parchment layer while the beans are in a semi-hard, semi-soft state. Finally, just a few more days of drying bring the moisture down to 12%-13%.

From the description above you can see that wet hulling has a significant advantage: a relatively short drying time. Compared with other processing methods, wet hulling uses far less drying time because the skin, pulp, and parchment are removed before drying begins, greatly shortening the process. Indonesia needs wet hulling because the local weather is consistently unpredictable, with limited sunshine and high humidity. Processing methods that require long sun exposure, such as natural processing, would easily cause the beans to spoil during extended drying. At this point, FrontStreet Coffee believes another question comes up: why does wet hulling enhance the herbal flavor in coffee?

To be frank, FrontStreet Coffee believes wet hulling itself is not the main reason. It is the rough handling during the process that intensifies Mandheling's herbal flavor. First, the beans have their parchment forcibly removed by a huller while in a semi-hard, semi-soft state. In that condition the parchment is hard to remove, so the huller works forcefully, and the beans are very prone to cracking under the pressure. Compared with whole beans, cracked beans are more easily contaminated. (The image at right shows beans cracked by the huller, which are not counted as defective if uncontaminated.)

On top of that, the beans are dried after the parchment has been removed, and the drying happens on cement floors or compacted dirt roads. With the protective shell gone, the beans are exposed directly to their surroundings during drying, making them more likely to come into contact with dust, which leads to contamination and, in turn, amplifies the herbal flavor. This is why people believe wet hulling increases the herbal notes in coffee.

Improvements in Processing Quality

In short, the main reasons for Mandheling's strong herbal flavor come from variety and processing, specifically the rough handling during processing. As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned earlier, though, the herbal flavor in Mandheling has dropped noticeably in recent years. From the points above we can deduce that rough handling has been reduced. Drying methods, for example, have become more refined, with beans kept off the ground and turned frequently to cut the chance of contamination while improving drying uniformity. Alternatively, manual sorting is used to screen out defective beans and lower their proportion. As contamination and the number of defects fall, the herbal flavor naturally becomes less pronounced. This is especially clear in FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling, the high-quality representative of Indonesian coffee in our selection, which has almost no herbal flavor and instead offers a very pleasant mellow aroma, tasting clean and bright.

The reason FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling achieves this comes down to stricter selection standards. In both variety and processing, its requirements are more stringent than regular Mandheling. For variety, PWN currently uses Ateng for its Golden Mandheling. Although it is also a type of Catimor, it does not carry as much Robusta genetic material, because it was created by backcrossing Catimor with Typica, diluting the Robusta genes and yielding better flavor with less herbal character. After careful processing, these beans also undergo three rounds of manual hand-selection, which mainly removes defective, small, and unattractive beans. What remains are large, full beans with minimal defects. With fewer defective beans, the coffee's cleanliness naturally improves. Combined with the Ateng variety's lower proportion of Robusta genes, the herbal flavor here becomes almost negligible.

That is why it is hard to taste herbal flavors in Golden Mandheling, which instead offers a gentle, unique aroma with notes of chocolate, caramel, and spice. That is quite exceptional. Today there are many versions of "Golden Mandheling" on the market, such as 20-screen and 21-screen Golden Mandheling and various premium versions. However, only Golden Mandheling produced by PWN (Puwani) is the authentic Golden Mandheling. Golden Mandheling is a product launched by PWN, which registered the trademark in 2003. How do you tell real from counterfeit? It is hard to judge just by looking at the beans, but when you buy PWN Golden Mandheling green beans they come with PWN-branded burlap bags and corresponding certificates. When purchasing, you can check whether the seller shows these accompanying items, which serves as a way to verify authenticity. FrontStreet Coffee, for example, sells Golden Mandheling produced by PWN through our online platforms, and both of these items are shown on the product detail pages for your reference.

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FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

To taste the best of the wet-hulled style, FrontStreet Coffee first recommends the highest-grade PWN Golden Mandheling. PWN buys up high-quality Mandheling green beans and then runs selection by machine followed by hand sorting to pick out full, flawless beans, all of which reach specialty grade; Golden Mandheling is its flagship product. The beans are even and full, large and translucent, with a low defect rate. After medium-dark roasting they carry a rich roasted aroma, and the brewed black coffee has a clean body and a full, mellow mouthfeel, making it ideal for anyone who dislikes acidic coffee.

If you want to feel the wilder side, FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling is a mellow, rich everyday bean with a sweet-bitter character, an intense and stimulating entry, and clove and woody aromas. Medium-dark roasting keeps its acidity low while bringing out a spicy, minty edge and a strong, lasting sweetness. FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling is best of all as a pour-over: use 87-88°C water, 15g of coffee, a 1:15 ratio, and a coarse sugar grind, then pour in three stages to draw out the mellow body and caramel sweetness.