Coffee Bean Introduction: Golden Mandheling

Introduction to Mandheling

Mandheling coffee is produced in Sumatra, Indonesia, Asia, also known as "Sumatran coffee." It features an extremely rich flavor with sweet fragrance, pure bitterness, and full body, accompanied by a slight sweetness and subtle acidity, leaving a long-lasting aftertaste and resonance. Most coffee enthusiasts enjoy it as a single-origin coffee, but it's also an indispensable variety for blending mixed coffees.

Mandheling Flavor Profile

The texture is rich and solid with pleasant acidity. The aroma is mellow, with moderate acidity and abundant sweetness that is thoroughly intriguing. Suitable for dark roasting, it emits a rich fragrance. The gentleman of coffee—Sumatran Mandheling. Mandheling is a premium coffee bean grown on highland plateaus at elevations of 750-1500 meters, with the highest quality Mandheling produced in Takengon and Sidikalang. Due to its irreplaceable mellow taste, UCC Ueshima Coffee Co., Japan's largest coffee company, collaborated with renowned Sumatran coffee merchant PT Gunung Lintong in 1995 to establish their first coffee plantation in Asia, demonstrating Mandheling's significant position in the coffee world.

Mandheling represents masculinity, evoking a feeling of uninhibited satisfaction, freedom, and wandering through the world—a taste that captivates men's hearts, symbolizing a spirit of perseverance and the ability to let go. Some say Mandheling is heavy and intense, like the Caesar of coffees, whose iron hooves crush ancient desolation and traverse the distant horizons of yellow sands; others say Mandheling is gentle and agreeable, capable of making even the hardest-hearted men willingly surrender to its tenderness. Regardless of how people describe it, men become great because of Mandheling; women become charming because of Mandheling; life becomes full of achievement and pride because of Mandheling... the world becomes full of sunshine and love because of Mandheling. Perhaps this is like how life becomes great because of ideals, and how life becomes extraordinary because of practice.

Mandheling has always expressed its most unique sweetness through its most unique bitterness, much like life itself. When first tasting it, we might be taken aback, as even adding lots of sugar cannot mask that bitterness, yet we cannot control ourselves from being madly fascinated by the captivating aroma it emits, like thorns beside flowers, keeping us clear-headed and self-aware. Mandheling's bitterness won't trouble you; instead, it will make you feel more clear-headed. Before you encounter real pain, Mandheling is just an ordinary bitter beverage, just a liquid to refresh you, just a tool to make you pause temporarily—it cannot yet sense your grievances, but many people are madly fascinated by Mandheling's bitterness, as if poisoned and unable to quit. If you want to know why, they will tell you with a smile: "Because love is refined from bitterness."

Mandheling Character

Mandheling's lively micro-acidity mixes with the richest aroma, allowing you to easily experience the lively factors within gentle richness. Its extraordinary texture has captivated many pursuers. In the 17th century, the Dutch first introduced Arabica seedlings to Ceylon (today's Sri Lanka) and Indonesia. In 1877, a large-scale disaster struck the Indonesian islands, with coffee rust disease destroying almost all coffee trees. People had to abandon the Arabica they had cultivated for many years and introduced Robusta coffee trees from Africa, which have strong disease resistance.

Today, Indonesia is a major coffee-producing country. Coffee is mainly produced in Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi, with Robusta varieties accounting for 90% of total production. Sumatran Mandheling, however, is a rare Arabica variety. These trees are planted on hillside elevations between 750 and 1500 meters. The mysterious and unique Sumatran variety gives Mandheling coffee rich aroma, full texture, strong flavor, with slight chocolate and syrup notes. Mandheling coffee beans are relatively large with hard texture, making them prone to defects during cultivation. After harvesting, they usually undergo strict manual selection. If quality control is not strict enough, it can easily lead to inconsistent quality. Additionally, different roasting degrees directly affect the flavor, making it a controversial single-origin coffee. Mandheling has a heavy flavor with rich body and lively, rich dynamism, neither astringent nor acidic, with body and bitterness fully expressed. The appearance of Mandheling coffee beans can be said to be the ugliest, but coffee enthusiasts say that the less attractive Sumatran coffee beans look, the better, richer, and smoother they taste.

Mandheling Origin

Mandheling coffee is considered the world's most mellow coffee. When tasting Mandheling, you can feel distinct smoothness on your tongue. It also has lower acidity, but this acidity can still be clearly tasted. The lively micro-acidity mixes with the richest aroma, allowing you to easily experience the lively factors within gentle richness. Additionally, this coffee has a faint earthy fragrance, which some describe as the aroma of herbal plants.

Asia's most famous coffee-producing regions are the islands of the Malay Archipelago: Sumatra Island, Java Island, and Kalimantan Island. Among them, Sumatran Mandheling coffee produced on Sumatra Island in Indonesia is the most renowned. It has two famous varieties: Sumatran Mandheling DP Grade One and Aged Sumatran Mandheling. Sumatran Mandheling DP Grade One has a long aftertaste with a wild fragrance, the unique earthy smell characteristic of primeval forests. In fact, Mandheling's richness creates a very masculine feeling. High-quality Grade One Mandheling coffee has very light acidity, like the slight sourness of flowers and fruits. Besides the characteristic rich flavor of Indonesian coffee, it also has a bitter-with-sweet taste, deeply loved by those who enjoy dark roasted coffee. Aged Sumatran Mandheling coffee is called "aged" because it is stored in cellars for three years before export. But aged coffee is by no means stale coffee; rather, it's specially processed slightly pale coffee that is richer, with reduced acidity but increased body, longer aftertaste, and strong spice notes—sometimes pungent, sometimes walnut-like, sometimes chocolate-like. Before Blue Mountain coffee was discovered, Mandheling was regarded as the finest among coffees. Interestingly, although Indonesia produces the world's most mellow coffee, Indonesians prefer Turkish-style coffee.

Mandheling coffee is produced in Sumatra, Indonesia, Asia, also known as "Sumatran coffee." Main producing areas include Java Island, Sulawesi Island, and Sumatra Island, with 90% being Robusta varieties. Among them, "Mandheling" produced on Sumatra Island is the most famous. The finest traditional Arabica coffee produced in northern Sumatra is marketed under the names Lintong and Mandheling. Strictly speaking, Lintong refers to coffee grown in a small area in the southwestern part of Lake Toba within the Lintong administrative region. Coffee growing areas are scattered across high, undulating clay plateaus covered with ferns. Lintong coffee is non-shade grown, uses no chemicals, and is almost entirely owned by small private owners. Mandheling is a broader term that includes Lintong coffee and growing areas in Diari [capital Sidikalang] and northern Lake Toba under similar conditions.

Origin of the Name Mandheling

Mandheling is neither a region name, place name, port name, nor coffee variety name—so how did its name originate? In fact, it's a phonetic error of the Indonesian Mandheling ethnic group.

During World War II when Japan occupied Indonesia, a Japanese soldier drank incredibly mellow coffee in a café. He asked the owner the coffee's name, but the owner misunderstood and thought he was asking where he was from, so he replied: Mandheling. After the war, the soldier recalled the "Mandheling" he drank in Indonesia and commissioned an Indonesian coffee merchant to ship 15 tons to Japan, which surprisingly became extremely popular. The name Mandheling thus spread, and that coffee merchant is now the renowned PWN (Pwani Niwaha) Coffee Company. The well-known Mandheling is produced around Lake Toba in northern Sumatra. The finished product has a unique fragrance of medicinal herbs and forest trees.

FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling: Over a decade ago, Japanese people adopted stricter quality control, using four manual bean selections to remove defective beans, producing Golden Mandheling with dark green color and uniform bean appearance, creating another wave of market demand that drove even Europe and America into frenzy.

Aged Mandheling: Characterized by sweetness like honey. Successful aged beans eliminate Mandheling's unrefined acidity. Acidic and astringent components transform into sugars through aging, making the coffee rounder and sweeter when opened. Failed aged Mandheling is like coffee zombies, with a taste that's difficult to consume.

Mandheling Characteristics

Its flavor is extremely rich, fragrant, bitter, and full-bodied, with a slight sweetness. Most coffee enthusiasts enjoy it as a single-origin coffee, but it's also an indispensable variety for blending mixed coffees. Since Mandheling coffee beans themselves lack acidic characteristics, special brewing methods typically use Mandheling coffee beans as a base. During long-term insulation or when making iced coffee, there's no unpleasant astringent acidity.

After roasting, the beans are quite large, with raw beans appearing brown or dark green, having a special caramel-like fragrance, and a mellow, rich taste when brewed.

Mandheling Processing

Sellers often label Lintong and Mandheling coffees as dry-processed. In fact, they often use various mixed methods to separate the fruit pulp from coffee seeds, with a more common approach being backyard-style wet processing. Smart farmers put freshly picked coffee cherries into simple depulping machines assembled from scrap metal, wood, and bicycle parts. Then they put the depulped, wet, sticky beans in plastic woven bags to ferment overnight. The next morning, they manually wash away the fermented soft fruit pulp and mucilage. The coffee beans wrapped in parchment are pre-dried on thin boards in the front yard, then sent to middlemen's warehouses to remove parchment and further dry. Finally, trucks transport the coffee to Medan Port (capital of Sumatra) for the third and final drying. It's also reported that in other Mandheling-producing regions, after depulping, the mucilage is allowed to dry while attached to the beans, similar to Brazil's semi-washed processing. Later, machines remove the dried mucilage and parchment. Finally, it undergoes the same two-stage drying: first in middlemen's warehouses, then in exporters' warehouses at Medan Port.

The processing method and Sumatran characteristics. I describe these processing steps in such detail because it's unclear to what extent soil, atmosphere, unusual processing techniques, and three-stage drying each contribute to forming the unique characteristics of Lintong and Mandheling coffees. Only one thing is certain: these processing methods occasionally produce excellent coffee but are also extremely inconsistent. Only relentless sorting at exporters' warehouses in Medan Port can ensure that the deep texture and unique understated richness of Lintong and Mandheling emerge from interference by other off-flavors.

Mandheling Origins

The gentleman of coffee—Sumatran Mandheling. Mandheling is a premium coffee bean grown on highland plateaus at elevations of 750-1500 meters, symbolizing a spirit of perseverance and the ability to let go. It represents masculinity, evoking a feeling of uninhibited satisfaction, freedom, and wandering through the world—a taste that captivates men's hearts.

Some say Mandheling is heavy and intense, like the Caesar of coffees, whose iron hooves crush ancient desolation and traverse the distant horizons of yellow sands; others say Mandheling is gentle and agreeable, capable of making even the hardest-hearted men willingly surrender to its tenderness. Regardless of how people describe it, men become great because of Mandheling; women become charming because of Mandheling; life becomes full of achievement and pride because of Mandheling... the world becomes full of sunshine and love because of Mandheling. Perhaps this is like how life becomes great because of ideals, and how life becomes extraordinary because of practice. Mandheling has always expressed its most unique sweetness through its most unique bitterness, much like life itself. When first tasting it, we might be taken aback, as even adding lots of sugar cannot mask that bitterness, yet we cannot control ourselves from being madly fascinated by the captivating aroma it emits, like thorns beside flowers, keeping us clear-headed and self-aware.

Mandheling's bitterness won't trouble you; instead, it will make you feel more clear-headed. Before you encounter real pain, Mandheling is just an ordinary bitter beverage, just a liquid to refresh you, just a tool to make you pause temporarily—it cannot yet sense your grievances, but many people are madly fascinated by Mandheling's bitterness, as if poisoned and unable to quit. If you want to know why, they will tell you with a smile: "Because love is refined from bitterness." Mandheling's character: Mandheling's lively micro-acidity mixes with the richest aroma, allowing you to easily experience the lively factors within gentle richness. Its extraordinary texture has captivated many pursuers.

In the 17th century, the Dutch first introduced Arabica seedlings to Ceylon (today's Sri Lanka) and Indonesia. In 1877, a large-scale disaster struck the Indonesian islands, with coffee rust disease destroying almost all coffee trees. People had to abandon the Arabica they had cultivated for many years and introduced Robusta coffee trees from Africa, which have strong disease resistance. Today, Indonesia is a major coffee-producing country. Coffee is mainly produced in Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi, with Robusta varieties accounting for 90% of total production. Sumatran Mandheling, however, is a rare Arabica variety. These trees are planted on hillside elevations between 750 and 1500 meters. The mysterious and unique Sumatran variety gives Mandheling coffee rich aroma, full texture, strong flavor, with slight chocolate and syrup notes. Mandheling coffee beans are relatively large with hard texture, making them prone to defects during cultivation. After harvesting, they usually undergo strict manual selection. If quality control is not strict enough, it can easily lead to inconsistent quality. Additionally, different roasting degrees directly affect the flavor, making it a controversial single-origin coffee.

Mandheling has a heavy flavor with rich body and lively, rich dynamism, neither astringent nor acidic, with body and bitterness fully expressed. The appearance of Mandheling coffee beans can be said to be the ugliest, but coffee enthusiasts say that the less attractive Sumatran coffee beans look, the better, richer, and smoother they taste. Mandheling coffee is considered the world's most mellow coffee. When tasting Mandheling, you can feel distinct smoothness on your tongue. It also has lower acidity, but this acidity can still be clearly tasted. The lively micro-acidity mixes with the richest aroma, allowing you to easily experience the lively factors within gentle richness. Additionally, this coffee has a faint earthy fragrance, which some describe as the aroma of herbal plants. Asia's most famous coffee-producing regions are the islands of the Malay Archipelago: Sumatra Island, Java Island, and Kalimantan Island. Among them, Sumatran Mandheling coffee produced on Sumatra Island in Indonesia is the most renowned. It has two famous varieties: Sumatran Mandheling DP Grade One and Aged Sumatran Mandheling. Sumatran Mandheling DP Grade One has a long aftertaste with a wild fragrance, the unique earthy smell characteristic of primeval forests. Besides the characteristic rich flavor of Indonesian coffee, it also has a bitter-with-sweet taste, sometimes mixed with a slight musty smell, deeply loved by those who enjoy dark roasted coffee. Aged Sumatran Mandheling coffee is called "aged" because it is stored in cellars for three years before export. But aged coffee is by no means stale coffee; rather, it's specially processed slightly pale coffee that is richer, with reduced acidity but increased body, longer aftertaste, and strong spice notes—sometimes pungent, sometimes walnut-like, sometimes chocolate-like. Before Blue Mountain coffee was discovered, Mandheling was regarded as the finest among coffees.

Mandheling Coffee Preparation

As a premium coffee variety, Mandheling coffee is mostly enjoyed as single-origin by coffee lovers. Of course, it's also an indispensable ingredient for other types of coffee.

1. Single-Origin Preparation

Roasting:

Since coffee beans can only maintain freshness for 1-7 days after roasting completion, after which they begin to lose flavor, leaving only bitterness without the mellow taste. Therefore, roasting your own beans ensures coffee bean freshness.

Traditional roasters are drum-type, which has a stewing characteristic that makes coffee beans' flavor more mature and texture fuller. Household drum roasters can roast half a pound of coffee beans at a time, with each roasting session (including cooling and bean discharge) taking about 21-25 minutes. For darker roasting, simply increase the time. When using, just add raw beans, set the roast degree, press the start button, and the roaster can automatically complete everything from roasting to cooling.

Grinding:

To merge with water, coffee makes the greatest sacrifice—being ground to pieces. Coffee must be ground into fine particles before brewing to increase the contact area between water and coffee, allowing delicious flavors to be extracted. In fact, grinders are more important than coffee machines. Currently, most people choose "burr grinders" because they can quickly and stably grind uniform coffee powder. Burr grinders are simple to operate. Generally, they have two setting functions: one for setting grind size, one for setting grinding time. Grind size is usually represented by Arabic numerals, with smaller numbers indicating finer grinding. Above the grinder is a funnel-shaped container holding unground beans, while below is a drawer for collecting ground coffee powder. When choosing a grinder, pay attention to its power, usually between 70-150 watts—the higher the better. Higher-power grinders grind faster, with coffee powder staying between burrs for shorter periods, making it easier to grind lower-temperature coffee powder.

Brewing:

To brew a good cup of coffee, besides fresh coffee powder and relatively hard water, you also need a set of brewing tools that feel comfortable to use. Common coffee machines mainly have three brewing types.

Drip Method:

Water is poured over coffee powder, allowing coffee liquid to pass through filter cloth or filter paper at natural falling speed into a container. Basically, this method doesn't soak coffee powder; it just lets hot water slowly pass through the coffee powder. Drip cups and electric coffee machines belong to this category—they're the simplest brewing tools that can produce clean, brightly colored coffee.

Immersion Method:

Coffee powder is placed in a pot, soaked in hot water for several minutes, then filtered through filter cloth or mesh to remove coffee grounds, forming a cup of coffee liquid. Siphon pots, French presses, Belgian coffee pots, and Vietnamese coffee pots all belong to immersion brewing tools—they have a soaking process, thus creating more complex textures.

Pressure Method:

Pressurized hot water penetrates tightly packed coffee grounds to produce a cup of concentrated coffee. Tools in this category include moka pots and espresso machines.

Quick Brewing Method:

Italian espresso machines can be used for a relatively quick coffee brewing method. Espresso machines can continuously extract multiple cups of coffee. The high pressure during brewing emulsifies and dissolves oils and colloids from coffee beans, with the essence from beans being completely extracted through pressure, making the brewed coffee more concentrated with better taste and aroma.

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