How did Mandheling become a name for Indonesian coffee?
Mandheling is a well-known name for Indonesian coffee from Sumatra, prized for mellow bittersweetness with herbal and dark chocolate notes. The name comes from the Mandailing people rather than a single estate, so it is a trade name applied to coffee from a wider region instead of a strict geographic designation.
Indonesia's main growing areas are Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi. Java coffee comes from Java and belongs to the Arabica species, while most Indonesian output today is Robusta. The article also explains how to identify PWN Golden Mandheling and covers wet-hulling and honey processing methods.
Indonesia is a major coffee-producing country in Asia, known for its mellow bittersweetness, herbal and dark chocolate flavors. From Sumatra's Mandheling to specialty beans from Java and Sulawesi, Indonesian coffee has a rich history and regional character. This article sorts out Indonesia's three major representative producing regions, the origin of the name Mandheling, how to identify PWN Golden Mandheling, and processing methods such as wet-hulling and honey processing, and shares the regional information and flavor performance of several Indonesian beans from Front Street Coffee. Whether you prefer a bold taste or want to explore the diversity of Indonesian specialty coffee, you can find recommendations worth trying.
Coffee is a widely loved beverage around the world, and Front Street, as a member of the coffee industry, understands this deeply. Every day, Front Street receives customers of all age groups—office workers, recent graduates, and retired seniors—so it needs to recommend coffee from different producing regions according to different age groups and taste preferences.
If pursuing acidity means choosing Yirgacheffe, and liking a balance of sweet and sour means choosing Costa Rica, then for a mellow bittersweet flavor, Indonesian Mandheling is the one. Indonesia is an Asian coffee-producing country, and herbal, dark chocolate, and cedar are typical Asian coffee flavors, deeply welcomed by people who prefer a bold taste. The best growing areas among the Indonesian archipelago are concentrated on Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi, and these three islands have each given rise to three representative Indonesian coffees: Mandheling comes from Sumatra, with moderate acidity and outstanding rich aroma; Java coffee comes from Java and belongs to the Arabica species; Sulawesi coffee has plump beans and a rich aroma.
Which Indonesian coffee brand is good?
In the mid-17th century, the Dutch introduced coffee trees to Indonesia. In 1712, the first batch of coffee from Java was sold to Amsterdam. However, in 1877, all coffee trees on the plantations were destroyed by coffee rust, and Robusta coffee trees had to be introduced from Africa to replace the original varieties. Today only 6%-10% of coffee beans are Arabica. Indonesia is a major producer of Robusta coffee worldwide, producing 6.8 million bags of coffee each year, most of which comes from small plantations, accounting for about 90% of total production. If you want to taste high-quality Indonesian Arabica coffee beans, of course you should choose Front Street Coffee.
Indonesia Sumatra Producing Region
Indonesia is located in Southeast Asia, and its coffee history can be traced back to 1696, when Dutch coffee farm owners tried to find broader planting lands. After much searching, they finally set their sights on Indonesia's Java. After 30 years of development, Indonesia had already laid a sufficient foundation in the coffee market. Yet today, the representative of Indonesian coffee is actually Mandheling, which is also expected, because most of the Java coffee originally sold to Europe came from the Sumatra region, and Mandheling comes from Sumatra. Therefore, Sumatra can be said to be an important coffee-producing area in Indonesia.
Mandheling is also called Sumatra coffee, and the hometown of high-quality Mandheling is the Lake Toba area, located at the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island. Lake Toba is located in the central part of North Sumatra Province, and Dutch colonists moved "Java Mandheling" north to the Lake Toba area in 1888. Lintong in South Sumatra and the Lake Toba area can be called Mandheling, and the Lintong area is the Mandheling producing region. Mandheling is produced in the mountains around Lake Toba, which is located north of Medan, the provincial capital of Sumatra, and is an alpine freshwater lake with an average altitude of about 900 meters. What is usually called Mandheling refers to the Timor or Ateng varieties planted in the mountainous areas around Lake Toba.
Front Street Coffee — Indonesia Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling Region: Gayo Mountain, Aceh, Sumatra Altitude: 1100-1600 meters Variety: Ateng Grade: G1, 3 times hand-sorted Processing Method: Wet-hulled
Front Street's flagship Mandheling coffee—Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling uses the Ateng variety. Ateng is the localized Indonesian name for Catimor, and this variety is very suitable for planting and flavor development in the Aceh region. The most original Catimor is a combination of the Arabica and Robusta species, so if asked what relationship the Indonesian Golden Mandheling variety has with the Robusta variety, it can roughly be said that Ateng is Robusta's "grandson." These Ateng are planted in the Gayo Mountain region, located in Aceh Province in northern Sumatra. Coffee in the Gayo Mountain region is planted on slopes around Takegon town and Lake Tawar, with an average planting altitude between 1110 and 1600 meters. The coffee is grown by smallholders under shade trees and processed by the wet-hulled method, showing a unique flavor and a low yet lively full body.
The Origin of the Name Mandheling Coffee
Indonesian coffee's Mandheling originally referred to the name of an Indonesian tribe. After colonizing Indonesia, Japanese soldiers returned to Japan and could not forget the delicious local coffee, so through trade connections they asked locals to help collect high-quality coffee beans, among which was this Mandheling. The Japanese loved this coffee bean very much, and because the commercial source was inconvenient to disclose, the local casually said "Mandheling," and thus Mandheling accidentally became the name of this coffee bean. This local was the owner of Indonesia's PWN company (Pwani Coffee Company). PWN was the first company to export Golden Mandheling coffee beans to Japan, and only Mandheling produced by this company is authentic Golden Mandheling. Front Street Coffee has used Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling for many years. PWN also changed from 60 kg per bag at the beginning to 30 kg per bag later, and the producing region also changed from Lintong to Gayo Mountain.
How to distinguish genuine Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling?
Severely affected by the pandemic, shipping space resources from Indonesia to China this year have been quite tight compared with previous years, and the new-crop Golden Mandheling originally scheduled to arrive at port in October was a full month late. Compared with other Mandheling, Golden Mandheling has a stronger sweet aftertaste and sugarcane aroma. Although everyone knows that only PWN's Mandheling is called 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 might ask the seller to provide the PWN raw bean gunny sack or the certificate accompanying the beans, and then you can determine whether it is what we call Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling.
Why is Front Street Coffee's Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling so popular?
The specification of Golden Mandheling is 18 mesh or above, with fewer than 3 defective beans (in a 300g raw bean sample), belonging to the highest grade G1, dark green in color, and with a neat flat-bean shape. After strict 4-time screening, Golden Mandheling not only no longer has the earthy miscellaneous flavors unique to ordinary Mandheling, but also tastes cleaner and brighter, with even stronger sweetness and fragrance. Front Street Coffee baristas once tried a blind test among 7 Indonesian Mandheling coffee beans, and all Front Street Coffee baristas could immediately identify it, which shows just how distinctive it is.
Indonesia's Unique Green Coffee Processing Method—Wet-Hulling
Most Mandheling coffee uses Sumatra's unique coffee bean processing method—wet-hulling. Because the local weather is mostly rainy, with constant typhoons, it cannot achieve the good weather required for natural drying, and the local economy is not good either, so it also cannot use the more expensive washed method. Thus the wet-hulled method with strong local characteristics came into being.
Today Indonesia's coffee development is no longer the poor scene of the past, and there are quite a few estates and companies with enough conditions to use the washed method, but why has wet-hulling not been abandoned? Front Street Coffee believes that wet-hulling is the factor that made Mandheling coffee go global. At the mention of Mandheling coffee, one thinks of wet-hulling, so they are already in a mutually reinforcing relationship. The specific steps of wet-hulling can be divided into two stages: in the first stage, a wooden pulper is used to remove the skin and pulp, and after 3 hours of fermentation it is dried so that the moisture content drops to a semi-dry, semi-wet 30-50%. In the second stage, the mucilage and parchment layer are removed, and the later drying continues. The drying process takes 2-4 days, and the moisture content drops to 12-13%.
West Java Producing Region
Indonesia's West Java producing region is a first-level administrative region of Indonesia, located in the western section of Java, bordering the Java Sea to the north and the Indian Ocean to the south, including offshore islands, with an area of 46,300 square kilometers. Java's climate type is a tropical rainforest climate, hot and humid all year round. The plains along the northern coast have the highest temperatures, while the mountainous areas are much cooler. High humidity often creates a debilitating climate. From November to March of the following year is the northwest monsoon period, with much rain and cloudiness; from April to October is the southeast monsoon period, with many sunny days and little rainfall. Jakarta's average annual rainfall is about 1760 millimeters. Jakarta's average daily maximum temperature is 30°C, and the minimum is 23°C. In the highland Tosari (altitude 1735 meters), the average temperature is 22–8°C. Because volcanic ash periodically fertilizes the land, Java's soil is very fertile.
Front Street Coffee: Indonesia West Java Arumanis Coffee Beans
Region: Mount Tigula, West Java Altitude: 1400-1600m Variety: S795/Jember Processing Method: Sun-dried honey processing
A honey-processed West Java coffee bean that Front Street sourced has a very special variety. This bean uses S795, and the bean color is blue-green. Its original tree species natural variation comes from S288, and S288 was originally an excellent hybrid variety cultivated in India in 1946. The predecessor of S288 was named S26 after crossing the first-generation S288 lineage with Typica, because the first-generation beans of S288 were hybridized from Arabica and Liberica and always carried Liberica's earthy fishy taste. Indian botanists then crossed the Kent variety, which was made by crossing the first-generation S288 with Typica, with the second-generation S288 to create today's S795. Local coffee farmers call S795 Jembe, because S795 was introduced from India by East Java's Jember Coffee Research Center and then given to Java farmers to plant.
Coffee Bean Honey Processing Method
Honey processing is Costa Rica's specialty processing method, and Indonesian coffee rarely uses this processing method, but West Java does use it to increase the complexity of the coffee and bring a breakthrough in mouthfeel. Honey processing means that after picking ripe coffee cherries, they are depulped to separate the coffee seeds, and then the coffee seeds with the coffee mucilage layer are spread on drying racks for a long period of drying.
During this period, they must be turned continuously by hand so that the coffee beans can ferment evenly and avoid excessive fermentation and spoilage. This state, which has coffee mucilage, is sticky, and resembles honey, was named honey processing. Through cupping this honey-processed coffee bean, Front Street Coffee found that its main characteristic lies in its complex sweetness and fruity aroma. Compared with Africa's Yirgacheffe, also known for floral aroma, a more obvious fruitiness is its main feature. Its flavor profile leans toward heavier tropical fruits such as mango and jackfruit, complex and steady, while the unique honey processing method brings a faint note of red wine.
Indonesia Sulawesi Producing Region
Sulawesi was formerly called Celebes. Sulawesi is one of the oldest islands in the archipelago, with exposed rocks more than a million years old. Soils such as yellow-red podzolic soils are found in coffee-producing areas. Beneath the surface of these soils there are often several layers of clay rich in iron. The most famous producing area is Toraja, located in the high mountains of South Sulawesi. Coffee beans produced in Toraja are also rare specialty beans in the world, with an annual output of about 1,000 metric tons, distributed across rugged slopes at an altitude of about 1200m in central and southwestern Sulawesi. Planting and harvesting are not easy, with an average annual output of only 300 kilograms per hectare. Semi-washed processing is the common processing method on Sulawesi.
Coffee Bean Semi-Washed Processing Method
Because they are grown in highland areas with inconvenient transportation, there is not much water resources. Local coffee farmers put coffee cherries into a basin to soak, then put them in plastic bags to ferment, and then dry them with parchment. After drying (moisture content between 11-13%), they are transported from the mountainous producing areas down to Kalosi below, and then resold to intermediaries or processing plants for subsequent refining, so the Kalosi area has become an important coffee collection and distribution center. This is also why some people call Toraja coffee Kalosi coffee. Coffee beans processed in this way not only retain their floral characteristics, but the fermentation also gives the coffee beans a mild acidity with some notes of ripe grapes, a clean yet solid mouthfeel, and a caramel sweetness that surges up in the finish and lingers in the mouth.
For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat of Front Street Coffee, WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
