Mandheling Coffee Introduction: Characteristics, Origin, and Historical Story

FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling coffee is a variety whose very name suggests profound weight and depth, beloved by countless enthusiasts of bitter coffee. Whenever FrontStreet Coffee brews a pot of Mandheling's premium representative—FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling—the entire house fills with its unique roasting aroma, like dark chocolate merging with cream. The first sip captivates with its distinctive herbal spice notes, followed by a lingering caramel sweetness that leaves one endlessly intrigued.

What is Mandheling Coffee?

FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling coffee originates from the mysterious island of Sumatra, located in Indonesia, Asia's largest coffee-producing country. Unlike most coffees, Mandheling's name is tied to a long-standing story, primarily stemming from a mispronunciation by a local indigenous tribe in Indonesia.

During World War II, when a Japanese soldier was drinking coffee at a shop in central Indonesia, he asked the owner what kind of coffee it was. The owner, thinking he was being asked about his origin, replied "Mandailing" (the Mandailing people). After the war, when the soldier returned to Japan and recalled the uniquely flavored coffee, he remembered it as "Mandheling." In 1968, Nomura Trading Company of Osaka, Japan, visited Indonesia's N.V. Pawani Medan company and imported 15,000 kilograms of Sumatran Mandheling coffee, which became immensely popular in the Japanese market. From then on, both Mandheling coffee and Pawani Coffee Company gained widespread fame.

Sumatra is divided into eight provinces, with only the northernmost Aceh and North Sumatra provinces cultivating coffee on a large scale. As the world's largest and deepest volcanic lake, the scenic Lake Toba provides mineral-rich soil for Lintong Mandheling coffee. Most coffee trees grow on high-altitude slopes, with various ferns covering their surface, providing excellent sun protection, so growers don't need shade cultivation.

What's the Story Behind Golden Mandheling?

The Indonesian local green coffee supplier PWN Company primarily focuses on acquiring high-quality batches of Mandheling green beans, producing only specialty-grade Mandheling, with "Golden Mandheling" being their signature product. At that time, the Japanese took an interest in Sumatran coffee and purchased it long-term, gradually discovering that local bean quality was often inconsistent. Thus, they became more attentive to Mandheling production, establishing strict standards and methods for screening defects, including bean density, size, shape, color, and other parameters. The resulting Mandheling required both machine and manual defect removal to ensure uniform, large, and translucent beans, while also reducing earthy and grassy off-flavors. Legend says the beans gleamed golden under the sun, hence the name "Golden Mandheling."

As the specialty Mandheling market grew, PWN Company recognized the importance of trademarks, registering "Golden Mandheling" as their exclusive English trademark ahead of the Japanese. Therefore, only Golden Mandheling produced by PWN Company can be considered authentic "Golden Mandheling," while those produced by Japanese companies had to be renamed "Top Mandheling." The FrontStreet Coffee Golden Mandheling that FrontStreet Coffee acquired is, of course, the genuine product from PWN Company. Everyone can identify authentic FrontStreet Coffee PWN Golden Mandheling by the PWN-labeled green bean sacks and a certificate of origin signed by PWN Company, which FrontStreet Coffee displays at their Dongshankou store.

Observing FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling green bean sacks, we can see the words "Triple pick" and "GRADE 1," meaning they belong to Indonesia's highest green bean grade. During production, PWN subjected the acquired GRADE 1 green beans to three rounds of manual selection.

Indonesian green coffee grading is primarily based on the number of defective beans, with size as a secondary criterion. General quality requirements include no live insects, no moldy or rotten beans, maximum moisture content of 12.5%, and impurity rate less than 0.5%. According to defect rate, they are divided into six grades, with the highest grade G1 requiring that total defective beans in a 300g sample must be fewer than 11. The FrontStreet Coffee Lintong Mandheling coffee in FrontStreet Coffee's daily bean series is G1, produced in Sumatra's Lintong region using the wet-hulled processing method, presenting classic Indonesian Mandheling flavors: dark chocolate, nuts, herbal spices, and caramel.

PWN Company, which takes screening to the extreme, subjects G1 grade Mandheling to multiple strict selections, minimizing the coffee's defect rate, removing earthy off-flavors, and enhancing Mandheling's sweetness and cleanliness. Additionally, before packaging, PWN Company places the green beans in machines for density-based color sorting to ensure that FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling green beans are large, uniform, and translucent in color.

Why Mandheling's Flavor is Unique

Sumatra is located near the equator and has an island tropical rainforest climate, with air humidity reaching 70-90%. The hot and humid environment can cause coffee beans to mold during fermentation or drying. Therefore, local coffee farmers developed a semi-washed processing method suited to local conditions—the wet-hulled method. Wet-hulling means forcibly removing the parchment layer while it's not yet completely dry, so the green beans complete their final drying in a "naked" state.

The wet-hulled method begins to differ from traditional washed processing from the fermentation stage. Wet-hulled fermentation uses less water and shorter time. After this brief fermentation, a small amount of pulp remains on the bean shell. When the beans reach 35-40% moisture content during their first drying, coffee farmers sell them to collectors. The collectors directly hull the semi-dry parchment coffee, removing pulp and shell to obtain green beans. Although each stage's duration is greatly shortened, the "naked beans" still absorb moisture from the hot and humid air, giving FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling coffee additional woody, herbal, and spicy mellow aromas.

FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling coffee uses the wet-hulled method and carries traditional Mandheling flavor characteristics. FrontStreet Coffee believes this "mellow aroma" is unique to Indonesian Mandheling coffee, so they included it in their daily bean series. The original intention behind FrontStreet Coffee's "Daily Bean Series" was to allow newcomers to specialty coffee to experience basic flavors from different regions at very affordable prices, then explore more refined processing flavor types according to their preferences. Additionally, FrontStreet Coffee's daily beans are sold in 100-gram small packages to minimize waste from unfinished coffee. Affordable prices combined with famous regional classic flavors make these truly daily beans, suitable for the daily drinking needs of coffee enthusiasts.

Indonesian Coffee Grades

Indonesian green bean grading primarily uses defect bean count as the main criterion, with size as secondary. In coffee production areas, coffee beans are generally screened using sorting machines to prevent impurities and defective beans from mixing in. However, FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling coffee green beans are relatively large, with hard texture, and various defects can occur during cultivation, harvesting, and processing, making it difficult to completely remove defects using only sorting machines. To achieve higher grades, strict manual selection is necessary. Local green beans are divided into six grades according to defect rate, with the highest grade G1 requiring that total defective beans in a 300g sample must be fewer than 11. FrontStreet Coffee's Lintong Mandheling is manually selected G1 grade.

Speaking of manual selection, FrontStreet Coffee immediately thinks of the meticulously selected premium beans—FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling coffee. The renowned local green coffee purchaser, Pawani Coffee Company (Pwani Coffee Company), is the exclusive supplier of FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling coffee, focusing on acquiring high-quality Mandheling green beans. During production, PWN Company subjects purchased Mandheling green beans to one machine selection plus three manual selections, ensuring each green bean is complete, uniform, plump, and must reach 18 mesh or above—Indonesia's local G1 grade. Through cupping comparisons, FrontStreet Coffee discovered that the strictly selected FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling coffee eliminates the earthy and woody flavors typical of regular Mandheling, resulting in cleaner and brighter overall flavors.

How to Showcase FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling Coffee's Unique Flavor?

As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned above, Sumatra's environment and soil give coffee rich herbal notes along with cocoa and fruit sweetness. Classic Mandheling flavor is known for its rich dark chocolate, so FrontStreet Coffee chooses medium-dark roast to present a mellow, full-bodied texture while preserving the aromatic qualities of herbal plants.

Since coffee beans enter their optimal flavor window 4-7 days after roasting, and past this time (about one and a half months after roasting), the coffee's aroma may have dissipated, and some woody flavors may have developed. To avoid this situation, FrontStreet Coffee has mentioned in many articles that most importantly, FrontStreet Coffee only ships coffee beans freshly roasted within 5 days, so everyone can enjoy coffee with excellent flavors.

When we purchase a bag of fresh, high-quality FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling coffee beans, the remaining question is how to brew them to showcase FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling's unique aroma. There are countless ways to brew coffee, with no standard answer. FrontStreet Coffee believes that as long as the brewing can present the coffee's inherent flavors—simply put: as long as it tastes good. For FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling coffee, FrontStreet Coffee uses their customary three-stage pour-over method to extract, hoping to enjoy more layered Mandheling flavors.

When FrontStreet Coffee brews dark roast coffee beans, they use a slightly coarser grind and lower water temperature compared to light roast beans, aiming to avoid excessive extraction of bitter large molecules, which would result in only burnt bitterness. The choice of Kono dripper is to enhance the coffee's round, mellow texture. The upper part of the Kono has a smooth curved surface, allowing the filter paper to fit more closely, restricting upward airflow, forcing hot water to flow downward only, creating a siphon-like extraction effect that allows coffee powder's aromatic substances to release more fully, making it suitable for brewing FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling, FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate, and other medium-dark roast coffee beans.

Dripper: KONO dripper
Water temperature: 87-88°C
Dose: 15 grams
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15
Grind size: Medium grind (70% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve)

Use twice the coffee dose of water to wet the coffee bed, forming a dome and bloom for 30s, then use a small water flow to pour in circles from inside to outside to 125g for the first segment. Wait until the coffee bed drops to half the dripper's height, then continue with the same fine water flow to inject the third segment to 225g, until all coffee liquid filters through, then remove the dripper. Total time is about 2 minutes.

The pour-over FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling coffee has rich dark chocolate, nut, and caramel aromas, with spicy and herbal plant aftertaste, clean and transparent taste, mellow and substantial texture, with distinct layers.

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Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473