Is Every Golden Mandheling Coffee Authentic?

Golden Mandheling coffee is the top tier of the Mandheling family, but not every bean sold under the name is the real thing. The authentic version carries PWN (Pawani) certification and comes from the Gayo region of Sumatra, Indonesia, where beans are screened and wet-hulled. It drinks mellow and solid, with a pronounced sweet aftertaste.

Mandheling is not a single variety; it refers to Arabica grown on Sumatra. The island has three main specialty areas: Gayo Mountain in Aceh, Lintong around Lake Toba, and Mangkuraja in Bengkulu. Gayo surrounds Lake Tawar at 1,100 to 1,600 meters with roughly 2,200 mm of rain a year. Volcanic soil and that rainfall support cultivation, and PWN's trademark covers purchasing and selection standards.

Golden Mandheling is the top representative of Mandheling coffee, but not all beans bearing this name are authentic. The truly PWN-certified Golden Mandheling comes from the Gayo region of Sumatra, Indonesia, and undergoes strict screening and wet-hulling to present a mellow, solid flavor with a pronounced sweet aftertaste. The Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling sold by Front Street Coffee is exactly the authentic product with a PWN certification certificate. This article will guide you through the regional background, processing method, variety characteristics, roasting approach, and brewing suggestions of Golden Mandheling, along with Front Street's cupping flavor description, to help you fully understand this Sumatran "noble" coffee.

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When many coffee lovers first step into a Front Street Coffee shop, their eyes are often firmly caught by a Golden Mandheling coffee bean from the Indonesian region. Some even jokingly ask: Is this bean mixed with gold?

The "noble" of Sumatra — Golden Mandheling coffee beans

Although Golden Mandheling coffee beans have nothing to do with real gold, they are indeed outstanding within the Mandheling family.

Mandheling coffee beans are not the name of a certain coffee variety, but refer to Arabica coffee grown on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Sumatra is located at the westernmost end of Indonesia, with the highest altitude reaching 3,805 meters. The island has three main specialty coffee regions: Gayo Mountain in Aceh Province in the north, Lake Toba in North Sumatra Province, namely the Lintong region, and Mangkuraja in Bengkulu Province in the south.

The Gayo region surrounds the picturesque Lake Tawar, with an average annual rainfall of about 2,200 mm and an average altitude between 1,100 and 1,600 meters. Combined with the help of volcanic soil, it is very suitable for coffee cultivation. The Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling coffee beans sold by Front Street Coffee come from the Gayo coffee region.

Golden Mandheling coffee beans are a trademark registered by the Indonesian PWN (Pawani) coffee company. The uniqueness of this bean is reflected in two aspects: First, PWN purchases coffee cherries grown in the Gayo region, which is mainly cultivated by independent smallholders and uses shade-tree cultivation to improve coffee quality;

Second, after purchasing the cherries, PWN first selects ripe coffee cherries of size 18 mesh or above. After drying, it then carries out at least 3 rounds of purely manual sorting to ensure that no more than 3 defective beans are found in a 300-gram green bean sample, belonging to the highest grade G1.

Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling is darker green in color and has a neat flat-bean shape. In sunlight, the green beans give off a golden luster, which is how the name Golden Mandheling came about.

Look for PWN! Authentic Golden Mandheling coffee beans come 100% from the PWN company.

As Golden Mandheling grows in fame, many beans appear on the market under the Golden Mandheling name but are not produced by PWN. These can actually only be called specialty Mandheling.

The Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling sold by Front Street Coffee is Golden Mandheling coffee beans certified by a certificate issued by PWN. The certification certificate issued by PWN and the raw Golden Mandheling coffee jute bags bearing the PWN logo can both be seen at Front Street Coffee shops.

Processing method of Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling coffee beans

Like other Mandheling coffee beans, Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling coffee beans also use Indonesia's unique local wet-hulling method.

Sumatra's terrain is highly undulating and not conducive to water storage. Every drop of water is precious, so coffee beans were initially mostly sun-dried. However, the quality of sun-dried beans was unstable, so they switched to a pulped natural method similar to Brazil's. Yet Indonesia's climate differs from Brazil's, often bringing strong sudden northwest rain, which instead causes mold in parchment beans and ruins the entire batch.

So farmers came up with another method. Because the time available for sun drying is unstable, they simply dry the coffee for a few hours after harvest, and while the moisture content is still high, directly use special machines to remove the peel and pulp. Then the coffee beans still wrapped in parchment (with husk) are put into large water-filled barrels or tanks. Floating defective parchment beans are skimmed off, and the parchment beans that sink to the bottom are the good-quality ones.

After a brief washing, they are taken out and placed into barrels or plastic bags for a short dry fermentation, that is, allowing the pectin sugars on the surface of the seed shell to ferment and enhance flavor. Generally, the longer the fermentation, the stronger the acidity. Fermentation time varies by producer, usually only a few short hours, but some estates omit the dry fermentation stage and directly sun-dry the parchment beans to suppress acidity and increase a viscous mouthfeel, allowing the pectin sugars to fully ferment and enhance flavor, with fermentation time usually between 12 and 36 hours, depending on the specific situation.

After fermentation is completed, the parchment beans are sun-dried for one to two days until the moisture content of the beans drops to 30%-50%. At this point the coffee beans are still half hard and half soft. The processing station uses machines to remove the parchment and accelerate the drying process. When the coffee beans reach a moisture content of 12%-15%, they are then sent for machine sorting to remove various impurities and classify them by bean size.

The characteristic of wet-hulled coffee beans is their sheep-hoof shape, because the coffee beans are squeezed when the machine removes the skin and hull, causing the bean shape to change and become damaged.

Through Front Street Coffee's cupping comparison, coffees produced in the Sumatra region all show steady flavors such as herbal and aged wood. With the support of the wet-hulling method, the flavor is fuller and more solid. The advantage of Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling coffee beans is that after multiple manual screenings, the coffee particles are more uniform, making the roasting process more even, the overall mouthfeel cleaner, and the sweet aftertaste pronounced.

Coffee variety of Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling

Ordinary Mandheling coffee beans use Indonesia's most common TimTim variety, namely the Timor variety. Timor is a hybrid of Arabica and Robusta. Although its flavor is more refined than Robusta, it still retains many of Robusta's mellow coffee flavors and naturally lacks cleanliness.

Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling uses the Ateng variety, which is a variety produced by crossing Timor again with Arabica. Its flavor is naturally cleaner than that of the Timor variety.

How to roast Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling coffee beans?

The most well-known characteristics of Mandheling coffee beans are an extremely mellow mouthfeel and an almost non-acidic flavor, with a rich, sweet coffee aroma and a faint herbal note in the finish. Therefore, Front Street Coffee uses a medium-dark roast so that Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling can also display a mellow, solid flavor and mouthfeel.

Front Street roasting record: Yangjia 800N, bean charge 480g. Charge when the drum temperature reaches 200°C, set airflow to 3. After 1 minute, adjust the heat to 160°C, keep airflow unchanged. Roast until 5'40", temperature 148°C, the bean surface turns yellow, the grassy smell completely disappears, and dehydration is complete. Adjust heat to 140°C, airflow to 4; at 9'40", ugly wrinkles and dark streaks appear on the bean surface, and the toast aroma clearly turns into coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this time, listen carefully for the sound of the first crack. At 9'54", first crack begins. Reduce heat to 60°C, set airflow to 5, and drop at 204.5°C.

How should Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling coffee beans be brewed to taste good?

Deep-roasted coffee beans produce a large amount of carbon dioxide during roasting and have a looser structure, making it easier to release flavor substances. Therefore, Front Street Coffee recommends using a medium-coarse grind (70% passing rate on China standard No. 20 sieve) and low water temperature for extraction when brewing Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling coffee.

Since all freshly roasted coffee beans sold by Front Street Coffee are shipped within 5 days after roasting is completed, when you receive Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling coffee beans, please pay attention to the date and start extraction about 5 days after roasting is completed, giving the coffee beans a chance to release some carbon dioxide on their own and stabilizing subsequent extraction.

Dripper: KONO

Dose: 15 grams

Water-to-coffee ratio: 1:15

Grind size: 70% passing rate on China standard No. 20 sieve

Water temperature: 88°C

After rinsing the filter paper, pour in the ground coffee and gently level the coffee bed. The coffee dose is 15 grams. For the first pour, add 30 g of water for blooming, with a blooming time of 30 seconds; after blooming, pour the second stage until the total water amount reaches 125 grams, using a gentle circular pouring motion to avoid collapsing the coffee bed. After pouring, let the water slowly filter and extract on its own; when the liquid level drops to one-third, pour the final stage until the total water amount reaches 225 grams. Finish pouring in about 1 minute 40 seconds, and finish extraction and remove the dripper at about 2 minutes 05 seconds.

Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling flavor description: sweet herbs, cinnamon-like spices, orange-grapefruit peel aroma, mellow and rich sweetness, creamy walnut chocolate. The fruit acidity is restrained and soft, and the aroma carries a strong melon sweetness. As the temperature drops, the herbal aroma spreads out, with faint spices and a mellow herbal note accompanied by rich sweetness.

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