What Makes Golden Mandheling Coffee Taste Cleaner?

Golden Mandheling coffee comes from the Gayo Mountain area of Aceh, Sumatra, grown at 1,100 to 1,600 meters from the Ateng variety and wet-hulled. Unlike ordinary Mandheling, it cups clean with no earthy or musty note, showing baked toast, nuts, pine, caramel and herbs with a long sweet finish.

The current batch launched in 2020 and shifted origin from Lake Tawar to Aceh Gayo Mountain. Wet-hulling, a Sumatran method where parchment is removed while the bean is still moist, drives the body, and PWN sorting keeps defect levels low, which is why the earthy character common to the style does not appear here.

When coffee enthusiasts seek a rich, full-bodied coffee with a long-lasting sweet aftertaste, Front Street baristas often recommend Indonesian Mandheling. However, the earthy notes commonly found in ordinary Mandheling deter many people. Front Street Golden Mandheling is completely different—it is clean with no earthy or musty flavors, winning over numerous coffee fans with its chocolate-like silky richness and lingering sweetness. This article will thoroughly analyze this PWN-produced Golden Mandheling, from the Sumatra Aceh Gayo Mountain growing region, the Ateng variety, the unique wet-hulling process, to roasting and pour-over parameters, providing a comprehensive interpretation of its flavor code, and sharing Front Street's brewing suggestions to guide you through the extraordinary charm of true Golden Mandheling.

Whenever customers ask for a recommendation of a coffee with high body and a full mouthfeel, Front Street baristas typically introduce Front Street Indonesian Mandheling. However, many seasoned coffee enthusiasts know that most Mandheling on the market carries a distinctive earthy note, which is precisely why some people steer clear of it. So why are Front Street baristas still willing to recommend Front Street Golden Mandheling to customers? The key is that Front Street Golden Mandheling differs significantly in flavor from ordinary Mandheling—its mouthfeel is cleaner, without the musty earthiness, replaced by chocolate-like rich silkiness and an endless sweet aftertaste, making it highly favored by coffee lovers worldwide. Next, Front Street will discuss Front Street Golden Mandheling in detail through this article.

Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling Coffee Beans

Country: Indonesia

Region: Sumatra, Aceh, Gayo Mountain

Altitude: 1100-1600m

Variety: Ateng

Processing Method: Wet-hulled

Flavor: Baked toast, nuts, pine, caramel, herbs

The Front Street Golden Mandheling currently sold in Front Street stores is the latest batch launched by the company in 2020. Unlike the Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling acquired in previous years, this latest batch comes from the Aceh Gayo Mountain region in Sumatra, whereas the previous ones were from Lake Tawar in Sumatra. What are the characteristics of this Front Street Golden Mandheling? According to Front Street's cupping and brewing experience, compared to the previous Front Street Golden Mandheling, the new version exhibits more pronounced baked toast flavors and a richer mouthfeel.

FrontStreet Coffee has emphasized in multiple articles that the three essential conditions for a high-quality coffee bean are region, variety, and processing method. Below, Front Street will discuss Front Street Golden Mandheling coffee around these aspects.

Front Street Golden Mandheling Growing Region

Mandheling coffee is mainly produced on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. This island is the largest in Indonesia, located near the equator, with a typical tropical rainforest climate—high temperatures, humidity, and abundant rainfall—making it very suitable for the growth of Arabica coffee trees.

However, Indonesia has limited high-altitude areas, and the space available for growing high-quality Arabica coffee beans is correspondingly restricted. Of the coffee beans produced in Indonesia, only about 25% are Arabica, because Arabica only reveals its best flavors at high altitudes; the remaining 75% are Robusta coffee trees adapted to low-altitude environments. The highest-altitude areas in Indonesia are precisely in Sumatra.

The Mandheling coffee produced in Sumatra is Indonesia's most renowned specialty coffee. As Front Street mentioned above, Indonesia's climate is extremely humid and water resources are relatively scarce, making traditional sun-drying or washed processing methods impossible for coffee beans. But Indonesian coffee farmers, with their ingenuity, developed a unique wet-hulling method to process coffee cherries under constrained conditions, not only greatly shortening drying time and ensuring the stability of green bean quality but also improving production efficiency. The wet-hulling process further imparts a distinctive herbal note to Indonesian Mandheling.

Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling

The company that excels most in the Mandheling coffee field is PWN. PWN stands for N.V. Pawani Medan company, a trading company engaged in export business, founded by an overseas Chinese family from Quanzhou, Fujian, located in Medan, an important port in Sumatra. Since 1957, the company has been in the export business, dealing in rubber, cassia seeds, cloves, patchouli oil, and other products, including exporting Sumatra coffee beans to Japan.

Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling comes precisely from this company. Seasoned coffee enthusiasts know that Japanese people have a particular fondness for Mandheling coffee. The Japanese paid special attention to Mandheling very early on and established strict coffee cherry selection standards—the coffee produced must undergo four rounds of manual sorting to remove defective beans before processing, packaging, and sale. The name "Golden Mandheling" originates from a folk story: when Mandheling producers were selecting flawless green coffee beans, they noticed the beans emitted a golden glow under sunlight, hence the name "Golden Mandheling."

Unfortunately, despite the Japanese people's dedication to Mandheling coffee, "golden mandheling" has already been trademarked by the Indonesian Pawani coffee company, making "Golden Mandheling" an exclusive name for PWN from then on. PWN was also one of the first companies to sell Mandheling coffee beans to Japan. FrontStreet Coffee discovered through cupping that Front Street Golden Mandheling has a stronger sweet aftertaste and sucrose-like sweetness compared to several other Front Street Mandheling offerings in the store, making it particularly special with a very clean mouthfeel. Therefore, Front Street decided that no matter what, this uniquely flavored Front Street Golden Mandheling coffee had to be brought to Front Street's coffee-loving friends for them to taste.

Procuring Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling green beans is actually not easy, as annual production is limited. There are many unscrupulous coffee merchants on the market passing off ordinary Mandheling as Golden Mandheling, but professionally trained cuppers or baristas can taste and compare the difference. For ordinary coffee enthusiasts, identifying PWN Golden Mandheling is also simple—just ask the merchant to provide the green bean burlap sack with the PWN mark or the factory certificate accompanying the beans to confirm whether it is Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling. Among the dazzling array of Golden Mandheling on the market, only the Golden Mandheling produced by PWN is truly Front Street Golden Mandheling. Moreover, PWN's Golden Mandheling undergoes three rounds of manual sorting and one round of machine sorting, resulting in beautiful and uniform bean appearance, which makes the roasted coffee appear cleaner.

Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling is absolutely authentic. It was originally expected to arrive at Front Street stores in October 2020, but due to the pandemic, the ships available for transport from Indonesia were extremely limited, so this latest-crop Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling arrived a month later than expected.

Aceh Gayo Mountain Growing Region

As Front Street mentioned earlier, PWN chose a new growing region this year—Aceh Gayo Mountain, located at the northernmost tip of Sumatra. Coffee cultivation in Gayo Mountain is mainly concentrated around the town of Takegon and the hillsides beside Lake Tawar, with production altitudes averaging between 1100-1600 meters. Its coffee quality has always been excellent, but due to earlier political instability, coffee from this region was difficult to export. In recent years, as the situation has stabilized, Aceh's coffee cultivation has developed, with quality surpassing that of the Lindong region. This is undoubtedly an affirmation of Gayo Mountain's coffee cherry quality, and Golden Mandheling, as Indonesia's top coffee brand, certainly will not disappoint coffee enthusiasts.

Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling Coffee Processing Method

As Front Street mentioned above, the flavor characteristics of Front Street Golden Mandheling depend not only on PWN's pursuit of quality coffee cherries but are also made more special in flavor expression by its unique wet-hulling process, even becoming famous for its herbal notes. Next, Front Street will explain the Indonesian wet-hulling process.

Wet-Hulling Process:

1. Harvesting

March to May and September to December each year are the Sumatra coffee harvest seasons, when each farming household harvests coffee cherries. With the promotion of specialty coffee and the implementation of the fully ripe cherry program, more and more coffee farmers now harvest only fully red coffee cherries.

2. Depulping and Fermentation

Every day after noon during harvest season, coffee farmers deliver the coffee cherries collected in the morning to depulping workshops for processing—removing the skin and pulp of the coffee cherries, resulting in wet parchment coffee.

Coffee farmers ferment the parchment coffee, typically for 12-36 hours depending on the specific circumstances. After fermentation, the parchment coffee is laid out to dry. During harvest season, every household has burlap sacks spread out in front of their doors to dry parchment coffee—this is their source of coffee income. The removed skin and pulp are fermented into fertilizer, and plantations using such ecological fertilizer can earn extra points when applying for organic coffee plantation certification.

3. Hulling and Drying

When the moisture content of the parchment coffee is dried to 35-40%, coffee farmers collect them into woven bags, either 40 kg or 80 kg per bag, and send them to coffee processing factories for hulling, but they still need to continue drying to around 15% moisture content.

4. Machine Sorting and Hand Sorting

When the coffee beans are dried to 15%-14% moisture content, they must undergo machine sorting to remove impurities and be classified by bean size. This step is usually done by machine, hence called machine sorting. But to improve quality, the machine-sorted green coffee beans are also sent to hand-sorting warehouses for further sorting, where workers use their keen eyesight and dexterous hands to pick out remaining defective beans.

Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling Coffee Variety

The coffee variety of this year's Front Street Golden Mandheling produced by PWN differs from the Typica variety used in previous years; instead, it uses local Ateng coffee cherries. The Ateng coffee variety may sound unfamiliar, but it is actually the local Indonesian name for Catimor. Front Street believes that PWN's decision to use the Ateng variety is probably an attempt to move toward higher volume, because Catimor is a hybrid of Robusta and Arabica coffee beans, characterized by high yield and disease resistance, thus offering better profitability.

Ateng (Catimor)

As Front Street mentioned above, Catimor is not what we commonly call pure Arabica—it is a cross between Timor from the Robusta species and the Bourbon variety's mutation Caturra. It was initially developed in 1959 and began to be promoted in Brazil in the 1970s-80s. With its disease resistance and high yield, it secured a place among Central and South American coffee varieties. The recurring coffee leaf rust crises in Central and South America also helped drive the adoption of Catimor coffee beans.

Its characteristics are high yield and short stature, allowing dense planting, with new leaves appearing reddish-brown. However, due to its fast maturation and high yield, it requires adequate fertilizer supply and shade, but according to Front Street's understanding, its lifespan is very short, averaging only ten years.

Now, Front Street will share roasting and brewing information with all coffee-loving friends.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Analysis

Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling (characteristics) has excellent herbal notes, stronger caramel sweetness, relatively steady and elegant fruit acidity, abundant sweetness, and rich, wild spice flavors. Generally, Front Street Lindong Mandheling is best roasted until after second crack before unloading to effectively reduce off-flavors, but Front Street Golden Mandheling achieves excellent clarity and sweetness even when unloaded before second crack, offering a broader range for roasting interpretation.

Charge at 200°C, set airflow to 3, adjust heat to 160°C after 1 minute with airflow unchanged, roast until 5'40 at 148°C when the bean surface turns yellow and grassy notes completely disappear, completing dehydration, then adjust heat to 140 and airflow to 4;

At 9'40, the bean surface shows ugly wrinkles and dark streaks, and the baked bread aroma clearly transitions to coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this point, listen carefully for the sound of first crack. At 9'54, first crack begins. Reduce heat to 60, open airflow fully (adjust heat very carefully, not so low that cracking sounds cease), and unload at 204.5°C.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Suggestions

This brewing is mainly intended to highlight the rich, clean, and aromatic characteristics of Front Street Golden Mandheling, so a KONO dripper is used for brewing (this dripper was invented to mimic the rich coffee produced by flannel). For medium-dark roasted coffee, choose a medium-coarse grind. Use a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, with 15 grams of coffee grounds and 88°C water temperature. Lowering the coffee-to-water ratio makes the coffee lean toward a richer mouthfeel.

Brewing process: Slowly pour in the coffee grounds, keeping them as level as possible during pouring, and avoid shaking the dripper (because shaking reduces the spacing between coffee grounds, which is unfavorable for blooming and degassing). First pour: pour 30g of water in a small circular motion in the center and bloom for 30 seconds; the coffee bed will slowly expand into a "hamburger." Second pour: pour 120g in a circular motion from the center outward, keeping the pouring height as close to the coffee bed as possible, moving slowly to avoid over-agitation. Final pour: pour 100g, and wait for all the coffee liquid in the dripper to flow into the server to end extraction. Total extraction time: 2 minutes.

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