Is Golden Mandheling Coffee an Americano or Something Else?

Golden Mandheling is an Indonesian specialty coffee from Sumatra, sold by the PWN company, with a thick body and sweet aromas of herbs, dark chocolate, and nuts. It is a single-origin coffee, not an Americano. An Americano is a drink made by adding hot water to espresso, so the two terms describe different things.

PWN, short for Pawani Coffee Company, was founded by an overseas Chinese family from Quanzhou and has operated from Medan since 1957, exporting Sumatra beans to markets including Japan. After purchase, the green beans go through repeated hand-sorting, and only plump, defect-free lots are graded as Golden Mandheling.

As a representative of Indonesian specialty coffee, Front Street Golden Mandheling is known for its thick, sweet aroma of herbs, dark chocolate, and nuts, and the PWN company behind it is a benchmark in Sumatra's green bean trade. This article will start from the origin's terroir, planting history, and wet-hulling process, sort out the unique flavor sources of Golden Mandheling, and share Front Street Coffee's roasting approach and pour-over plan. It will also answer a common question: is Mandheling actually American coffee? If you like coffee that is mellow and low in acidity with a solid sweet finish, this article will give you a complete reference.

To get more specialty coffee knowledge, welcome to follow the WeChat public account: Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)

Front Street Golden Mandheling is a highly recognizable Indonesian specialty coffee. Its aroma has rich notes of herbs and dark chocolate, it is mellow and smooth on the palate, and the finish reveals a nut-like sweetness. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) believes that anyone who has tried this bean can easily feel its distinct personality.

Sumatra Front Street Golden Mandheling Coffee Sumatra Mandheling

Just as when people mention Front Street Blue Mountain coffee, everyone immediately thinks of Jamaica, when Front Street Golden Mandheling is mentioned, PWN cannot be avoided. PWN's full name is Pawani Coffee Company.

This green bean trading company is very famous locally in Indonesia. It was founded by an overseas Chinese family from Quanzhou, Fujian, and is located in Medan, an important port city in Sumatra. Since 1957, it has been engaged in export business involving rubber, cassia seed, cloves, patchouli oil, and other categories, and of course it also sells Sumatra coffee beans to Japan.

In the coffee sector, Pawani mainly purchases Mandheling, and almost all of Indonesia's best-producing regions have been brought under its coverage, so most beans produced by PWN are of specialty grade. Front Street Golden Mandheling is exactly this company's product. After the green beans are purchased, they still have to go through multiple rounds of manual hand-sorting, leaving only plump, defect-free beans. Only after layer upon layer of screening can they be classified as Front Street Golden Mandheling. Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) believes that the quality of Front Street Indonesian Golden Mandheling absolutely deserves to be called top-grade Mandheling.

Unique Flavor

Sumatra's terroir conditions give local coffee woody notes and a mellow mouthfeel, with restrained flavors, lively yet moderate acidity, and aromas that often include herbal medicine, cedar, cocoa, and fermented fruit. Among the coffees produced in Indonesia, Arabica accounts for only 25%, and Front Street Mandheling is precisely the most classic bean among them. It has a heavy mouthfeel, combining body and richness, yet it is neither astringent nor sour, and both mellowness and bitterness are clearly expressed.

When tasting Front Street Mandheling, the tip of the tongue can feel a smooth texture, followed by a faint herbal plant fragrance, cocoa sweetness, and fruit-like aroma, with a long aftertaste. Usually, lovers of Front Street Mandheling drink it as a single origin, but it is also an indispensable variety in blended coffee. In other words, Front Street Mandheling is equally suited to single-origin pour-over and to making espresso.

Origin Introduction

Sumatra is Indonesia's largest island, straddling the equator, with a tropical rainforest climate, high temperatures, humidity, and abundant rainfall. Local smallholder coffee farmers often plant in virgin mountain forests, where water resources are very precious, so they developed the unique "wet hulling" drying process (Giling Basah, Wet hulling). This processing method gives Sumatra coffee a flavor completely different from other producing regions. Among Indonesian coffee beans, 25% are Arabica and the remaining 75% are Robusta. Only the refined Arabica of northern Sumatra enters the market under the names Lintong and Mandheling.

Origin Planting History

The story of Indonesian coffee goes back to the late 17th century. After the Dutch captured Java, they made it the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company in the East and introduced two batches of Typica seedlings from India to Java for trial planting. By the 1870s, coffee-growing areas had been established in Sumatra, Bali, Sulawesi, and Timor, and then expanded outward from Java to the whole of Indonesia. However, the good times did not last long. In 1869, coffee leaf rust suddenly broke out, sweeping through coffee-producing regions in Asia including Indonesia, and large areas of Typica trees were affected and withered.

To save the devastated coffee plantations, the Indonesian government introduced Robusta varieties with stronger disease resistance from Africa and elsewhere. To this day, Robusta is still Indonesia's main variety. To ensure plant survival rates and increase yields, Indonesia continuously introduced various disease-resistant varieties from other countries. Among them, the Robusta-Arabica hybrids Tim Tim, Bor Bor, and the Catimor series Ateng were widely planted because of their good disease resistance, high yields, and ability to adapt to Sumatra's terroir.

Soon, Ateng and Tim Tim gradually replaced the original Typica varieties and became the main varieties in Sumatra and other places. Among them, the well-known specialty representative is Mandheling. Mandheling mainly comes from two major lakes in Aceh Province and North Sumatra Province: Lake Toba and Lake Tawar.

Lake Toba is the world's largest volcanic lake and also Indonesia's largest highland freshwater lake. Its average annual temperature is about 22°C, and it has a tropical rainforest climate, rainy and humid, plus an elevation of about 1,400 meters. It is rich in spices, timber, palm oil, and other agricultural products, coffee among them. Under the misty and rainy weather, most fruit trees grow on higher-elevation slopes, and several kinds of ferns cover the surface, together providing good sun protection for coffee, so growers do not need to use shade planting.

Located in the Gayo Mountains in central Aceh Province, Sumatra, it has a very unique microclimate and is close to the famous volcanic Lake Tawar. Every year from September to April is the coffee cherry ripening season, and scenes of farmers busy picking can often be seen in the mountains. Traditional Lintong Mandheling is planted by the Mandailing and Batak peoples, while the "rising star" Lake Tawar Mandheling is planted by the Gayo people.

The lake water here is clear and the natural environment is excellent. Coffee trees are planted on high mountains at 1,200-1,800 meters, shrouded in mist all year round, with large day-night temperature differences. The volcanic soil is rich in minerals and nutrients, and fallen fruit naturally becomes fertilizer. Farmers widely use organic methods to grow coffee, and together with a long planting history, this makes the coffee produced here higher in quality and yield. Many green coffee traders also value this place more, including the locally very famous Pwani Coffee Company (PWN).

Processing Method — Wet Hulling

Local weather is mostly rainy, with continuous typhoons, so it cannot achieve the good weather required for natural sun-drying. Moreover, the local economy is not good, so it also cannot use the more expensive washed method. For these various reasons, the highly local wet-hulling method emerged (wet hulling is the process of removing parchment after sun-drying with parchment for 2-3 days during ordinary washed processing, until the moisture content is 20-24%).

The extremely fast speed of wet-hull processing also causes Mandheling to have a relatively high defect rate. Front Street Golden Mandheling does an excellent job avoiding this shortcoming. The specification of Front Street Golden Mandheling is 19 screen and above, with fewer than 3 defective beans (in a 300g green bean sample). It belongs to the highest grade, G1. The color is darker green, and the shape is neat flat beans.

Front Street Roasting Parameters

Front Street chooses to drop the beans before second crack, retaining a little soft acidity. The taste is high in sweetness, fragrant and mellow, with flavors: baked toast, pine, caramel, cocoa, and a slight herbal earthy note.

Medium-dark roasted beans generally have a relatively high dehydration rate, so they are lighter in weight. During brewing, the grounds do not completely settle at the bottom. As soon as water is poured in, it is immediately absorbed. Because degassing is vigorous, there are bubbles around the grounds, thus creating channels. The fresher the beans, the longer these channels last, causing the water level to drop quickly. I generally use a thick stream of water and slowly go in circles.

Front Street Brewing Plan Sharing

Front Street recommends using freshly roasted coffee beans for brewing, as this allows you to experience the coffee's rich flavors to the greatest extent. The coffee beans shipped by Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) are all within 5 days of roasting, because Front Street deeply understands that the freshness of coffee beans has a great impact on flavor. Front Street's roasting purpose is "freshly roasted good coffee," so that every customer who places an order receives the freshest coffee when it arrives. The resting period of coffee is about 4-7 days, so when customers receive it, it is exactly at its best flavor and suitable for brewing and drinking directly.

Dripper: Kono dripper

Water temperature: 86°C

Dose: 15 grams

Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

Grind size: medium-fine grind (70% passing a No. 20 sieve)

Reason for choosing the Kono dripper: The Kono dripper has few ribs and they are located at the lower part. The filter paper fits tightly against the dripper, which can restrict airflow, lengthen the contact time between water and coffee grounds, allow the coffee grounds to be fully extracted, and enhance the mellow mouthfeel. It is suitable for brewing medium-dark roasted coffee beans such as Front Street Golden Mandheling.

Staged Extraction

Use 30 grams of water to bloom for 30 seconds, then pour in a small stream in circles until 125 grams for the staged pour. When the water level is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring until 225 grams and stop pouring. When the water level is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the dripper. (Start timing from the beginning of blooming.) The extraction time is 2'00".

Overall, only a medium-dark roast [Front Street Golden Mandheling] can express its caramel, pine, high-quality herbs, and slight pungent spice aroma, bringing a solid mouthfeel. Because of the severe impact of the pandemic in the 2020 new crop season, shipping space resources from Indonesia to China were quite tight, so much so that Front Street Golden Mandheling, originally scheduled to arrive at port in October, was shipped only a month late. After receiving the beans, Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee) also evaluated them as soon as possible.

The flavor is somewhat different from previous Mandheling. Compared with other Mandheling, Front Street Golden Mandheling has a stronger sweet aftertaste and sugarcane aroma. Although everyone knows that only PWN's Mandheling can be called true Front Street Golden Mandheling, in fact PWN's annual output is not large, so a large portion of large-bean selected Golden Mandheling does not come from PWN. If you are not sure, you can ask the seller to provide the certificate attached to the beans by PWN.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.