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 impressions of Mandheling coffee, FrontStreet Coffee believes that besides its rich, mellow texture and deep caramel notes, people also associate it with a distinctive "Mandheling flavor"—its herbal character.

Mandheling's herbal notes primarily refer to aromas reminiscent of herbs, soil, and wood, emerging after the rich fragrance, distinctive and wild. Thanks to this characteristic, Mandheling has always been a rather polarizing coffee bean. Those who enjoy this aroma love Mandheling, while those who don't enjoy it tend to dislike it strongly. However, in recent years, many friends have noticed that the herbal flavor in Mandheling has become milder, at least less obvious compared to before. Consequently, many friends have begun to trace the origins, wanting to understand why this herbal flavor has weakened and where it originates.

The Origins of Mandheling

In fact, consistent with the formation of other coffee flavors, the reason Mandheling carries herbal notes inevitably stems from three factors: variety, growing environment, and processing method. First, we need to understand that Mandheling coffee doesn't refer to a specific coffee variety, but rather to all Arabica coffee beans grown on the island of Sumatra. Due to a fortunate misunderstanding, Arabica coffee beans from Sumatra were sold as "Mandheling" and gained popularity. Since then, Arabica beans from the island have often been sold under the Mandheling name. This is a story that FrontStreet Coffee often shares, and our friends have likely heard it many times, so we won't elaborate further here.

The coffee cultivation history of Sumatra can be considered quite long, with the Dutch expanding coffee cultivation to this island as early as the 18th century. On Sumatra, the main coffee-growing regions are concentrated around Lake Toba and Lake Tawar. Among these, Lake Toba is known for the Lintong region, while Lake Tawar is famous for the Gayo Mountain region. Their elevations range from approximately 1100 to 1600 meters, making them ideal altitudes for coffee cultivation. For this reason, 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

Like many origins, the Dutch first planted varieties such as Typica and Bourbon—purebred Arabica—on the island. However, not long after, Arabica plants fell victim to rust disease, so the Indonesian authorities had to continuously introduce new varieties to maintain production. Gradually, 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, the most common varieties are Ateng and TimTim. Both Ateng and TimTim are hybrids created from Arabica and Robusta. Simply put, Ateng is Indonesia's local Catimor, while TimTim is Indonesia's local Tim. Because both varieties carry Robusta genes, they naturally possess some of the characteristic herbal and woody notes of Robusta, though relatively less intense. (Image shows the Ateng variety)

Wet Hulling Processing Method

The most commonly cited reason for Mandheling's strong herbal flavor is actually the local unique processing method—Wet Hulling. Let's first look at the wet hulling process, which generally follows these steps: First, a pulper is used to remove the coffee cherry's skin and pulp, and the coffee beans are washed. Then the coffee beans are moved outdoors for drying. After drying for about 3-4 days, the moisture content of the beans is reduced to about 30%-40%, and then a huller is used to remove the parchment layer from the beans while they're in a semi-hard, semi-soft state. Finally, only a few more days of drying are needed to reduce the moisture content to 12%-13%.

From FrontStreet Coffee's introduction above, you can see that wet hulling has a significant advantage—relatively short drying time. Compared to other processing methods, wet hulling uses significantly less drying time because the coffee's skin, pulp, and parchment layers are removed before drying begins, greatly shortening the drying period. Indonesia needs to use wet hulling because the local weather is consistently unpredictable, with limited sunshine hours and high humidity. Using processing methods that require long sun exposure, such as natural processing, would easily cause coffee beans to spoil due to extended drying times. At this point, FrontStreet Coffee believes another question arises: "Why does wet hulling enhance the herbal flavor in coffee?"

To be frank, FrontStreet Coffee believes that wet hulling itself is not the main reason. Rather, it's the rough handling during the process that intensifies Mandheling's herbal flavor. First, we can see that the beans have their parchment layer forcibly removed by a huller while in a semi-hard, semi-soft state. In this condition, the parchment layer is difficult to remove, so the huller operates quite forcefully, making the beans very susceptible to cracking under the huller's pressure. Compared to whole coffee beans, cracked beans are more easily contaminated. (The image on the right shows beans cracked by the huller, which are not considered defective beans if not contaminated)

Additionally, the coffee beans are dried after the parchment layer has been removed, and the drying takes place on cement floors or compacted dirt roads! After removing this protective shell, the beans are exposed directly to the environment during drying, making them more susceptible to direct contact with dust, leading to contamination and consequently enhancing the herbal flavor in the coffee. This is why people believe that wet hulling increases the herbal notes in coffee!

Improvements in Processing Quality

In summary, we can understand that the primary reasons for Mandheling's strong herbal flavor come from variety and processing (specifically, rough handling during processing). However, as FrontStreet Coffee mentioned earlier, the herbal flavor in Mandheling has decreased significantly in recent years! Based on the above information, we can deduce that rough handling during processing has been reduced. For example, drying methods have become more refined, with beans kept away from the ground and frequently turned to ensure reduced contamination probability while increasing drying uniformity. Alternatively, manual sorting is used to screen out defective beans, thereby reducing their proportion in the coffee. As the probability of contamination decreases and the number of defective beans is reduced, the herbal flavor naturally becomes less pronounced. This is particularly evident in FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling, the high-quality representative of Indonesian coffee in our selection, which has almost no herbal flavor. Instead, it offers a very pleasant mellow aroma, tasting clean and bright.

The reason FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling achieves this effect naturally lies in its stricter selection standards. Whether in terms of variety or processing, its requirements are more stringent than regular Mandheling. In variety selection, PWN Company currently uses the Ateng variety for their Golden Mandheling. Although it's also a type of Catimor, it doesn't contain as much Robusta genetic material. Because it's a variety created by backcrossing Catimor with Typica, the Robusta genes are diluted, resulting in superior flavor and less herbal character. After careful processing, these coffee beans also undergo three rounds of manual hand-selection! The selection mainly removes defective, small-sized, and unattractive beans. What remains are large, full beans with minimal defects. With fewer defective beans, the cleanliness of the coffee naturally improves. Combined with the Ateng variety, which has a lower proportion of Robusta genes, the herbal flavor in this coffee becomes almost negligible.

For this reason, we find it difficult to taste herbal flavors in Golden Mandheling, which instead offers a gentle and unique aroma, along with flavor notes of chocolate, caramel, and spices—quite exceptional! Currently, there are many different versions of "Golden Mandheling" on the market, such as 20-screen Golden Mandheling, 21-screen Golden Mandheling, and various premium versions. However, only Golden Mandheling produced by PWN (Puwani) Company is the authentic Golden Mandheling. Golden Mandheling is a product launched by PWN Company, which registered the trademark in 2003. How to distinguish authentic from counterfeit? It's difficult to tell just by looking at the beans, but when purchasing PWN Golden Mandheling green beans, they come with PWN-branded burlap bags and corresponding certificates. When purchasing, you can also note whether the seller presents these accompanying items, which can serve as a way to verify authenticity. For example, FrontStreet Coffee sells Golden Mandheling produced by PWN Company on our online platforms, and these two items are displayed on the product detail pages for your reference.

- END -

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473