How Do You Identify Authentic Golden Mandheling Coffee?

PWN Pwani Coffee Company, or Pawani, is an Indonesian trader that buys exceptionally high-quality Mandheling green beans and contracts select local lots. Its Golden Mandheling carries a registered trademark, so authenticity can be checked through the markings on green bean burlap sacks and the accompanying certificate of origin rather than the name alone.

Mandheling is Sumatra's signature coffee, and the Sumatra trade names beans by producing region, green bean trader, and processing method, which makes the market confusing for buyers. Lindong Mandheling from around Lake Toba, at roughly 900 meters, is the everyday version, processed by wet-hulling with a muted herbal aroma and sold in small packs for beginners.

Mandheling coffee is the pride of Sumatra, Indonesia, and the Golden Mandheling produced by PWN Pwani Coffee Company is the top representative among them. This article will introduce you to the background and history of PWN, help you understand the uniqueness of the Golden Mandheling trademark, and teach you how to identify authentic products through green bean burlap sack markings and certificates of origin. At the same time, we will also delve into Indonesia's unique wet-hulling process and the grading standards for Mandheling green beans. As a promoter of specialty coffee, Front Street Coffee will conduct a cupping comparison between Lindong Mandheling and Golden Mandheling, and share the brewing formula for Golden Mandheling, so you can taste the richness and sweet aftertaste of this top-grade Mandheling at home.

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When distinguishing Mandheling coffee, the Sumatra producing region uses a rather complicated system, usually naming it according to producing area, green bean trader, and processing method. Front Street Coffee's Dongshankou store keeps a daily staple bean "Front Street Lindong Mandheling" and a top-grade "Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling" on hand for customers to choose from.

Front Street Lindong Mandheling comes from the mountainous area around Lake Toba in North Sumatra. The lake is located north of Medan, the provincial capital of Sumatra, and is an alpine freshwater lake with an average altitude of about 900 meters. This coffee is processed using the local wet-hulling method and presents the unique herbal, muted aroma of Mandheling. Because Front Street Lindong Mandheling does not invest too much effort in the sorting stage and belongs to the regular version of Mandheling, Front Street has included it in its daily staple bean series and launched it in 100-gram small packaging, suitable for beginners who have just started trying pour-over coffee.

When it comes to high-quality Mandheling, Front Street cannot fail to mention the well-known Pawani Company (Pwani Coffee Company, abbreviated as PWN). Pawani can be called a headhunting company for specialty Mandheling, specializing in purchasing exceptionally high-quality Mandheling green beans and contracting local Indonesian batches with excellent appearance. Most of the Mandheling it produces reaches specialty grade. Pawani itself is a trading company engaged in export business, founded by an overseas Chinese family from Quanzhou, Fujian. Its processing plant is located in Medan, an important port in Sumatra. It began export operations in 1957, involving products such as rubber, cassia seed, cloves, and patchouli oil, and of course also exporting Sumatra coffee beans to Japan.

"Golden Mandheling" is the exclusive brand of Indonesia's Pwani Coffee Company (abbreviated as PWN). There are many types of Mandheling products on the market. Because PWN registered the English name "Golden Mandheling" as its company trademark, only the Golden Mandheling coffee produced by PWN is truly Golden Mandheling in the strict sense. You can identify authentic Golden Mandheling based on the green bean burlap sack bearing the PWN mark and a certificate of origin signed by PWN. Front Street displays these two identifiers in its Dongshankou store.

Wet hulling is one of the most common green bean processing methods in Indonesia, and it was "forced" into existence by local climatic conditions. Indonesia's year-round humidity is between 70 and 90%, typhoons can arrive at any time, and annual rainfall even reaches more than 2,000 mm. Such harsh weather makes it impossible to use the 2 to 3 weeks of sun-drying used in Africa. Washed processing is not only time-consuming but also consumes more labor and water resources, which Indonesia, with its goal of mass production, simply cannot afford. As a result, a unique semi-washed method was developed: wet hulling.

Coffee cherries with the skin and pulp removed are poured directly into a pool for brief fermentation of a few hours. At this point, a small amount of mucilage still remains on the parchment. The mucilage is removed by scrubbing. Then the parchment beans are dried. The first drying only needs to reach a moisture content of 30 to 40%, about 2 to 3 days, after which the coffee farmers sell the green beans to collectors. The collectors directly hull the semi-dry parchment beans they purchase by machine to obtain the innermost green beans.

Because the hulling machine uses relatively strong friction, it tears open the parchment layer clinging tightly to the green beans. At this stage, white or green viscous liquid usually flows out. Due to long soaking in mucilage and the humid environment, the green beans eventually become soft, pale and swollen, forming a grayish-green color. Stirred by friction, the green beans are also more likely to be crushed or injured, especially at both ends, forming small gaps and producing "goat-hoof beans." The "naked beans" with the parchment removed dry very quickly, and once the moisture content is 12 to 13%, they can be bagged.

The increase in processing speed also brought Mandheling a higher proportion of defects. Therefore, before export, hand sorting had to be used to remove defects in order to reach Indonesia's G1 grade (fewer than 11 defects per 300 grams of green beans). Generally, we see DP (double-picked) and TP (triple-picked). The more rounds of fine sorting, the higher the quality of the coffee beans.

Indonesian green coffee bean grading is mainly based on the number of defective beans, supplemented by size specifications. The general quality requirements are no live insects, no moldy, rotten, or stinking beans, a maximum moisture content of 12.5%, and an impurity rate of less than 0.5%. According to the defect rate, it is divided into six grades. Among them, the highest grade G1 requires that the total number of defective beans in a 300g sample must be fewer than 11. The staple Mandheling coffee beans mentioned above by Front Street are G1, processed by the wet-hulling method, which is the regular version of Indonesian Mandheling flavor.

PWN, which pursues the utmost in sorting, purchases Mandheling green beans of 18 screen size and above, with fewer than 3 defective beans in a 300g sample, which is the G1 grade, also the highest grade of Indonesian green beans. Subsequently, it strictly follows standards with 1 mechanical sorting plus 3 manual defect-picking rounds to ensure that the shape and size of the Mandheling coffee beans are uniform. In addition, before packaging, PWN also places the green beans in a machine for density and color sorting, making Front Street Golden Mandheling uniform and translucent in color.

As the market for specialty Mandheling coffee grew larger, PWN also realized the importance of trademarks and registered the English name "Golden Mandheling" as an exclusive trademark one step ahead of the Japanese. Therefore, only the Golden Mandheling produced by PWN can be considered truly "Golden Mandheling," while the Japanese-produced version can only be renamed "Dingshang Mandheling." The Front Street Golden Mandheling that Front Street obtains is of course the authentic product from PWN. You can identify authentic Golden Mandheling based on the green bean burlap sack bearing the PWN mark and a certificate of origin signed by PWN. Front Street displays these two identifiers in its Dongshankou store.

In roasting, in order to present the typical Mandheling flavor and retain more herbal spice notes, Front Street's roaster uses a medium-dark roast. Every time Front Street launches a coffee bean, it conducts at least one cupping evaluation. Under the same standards, cupping allows us to more objectively feel the strengths and weaknesses of the coffee.

Front Street conducted a simultaneous cupping comparison between Front Street Lindong Mandheling and Front Street Golden Mandheling on the bean list. Front Street Lindong Mandheling has rich chocolate, black sugar, and nut notes, with an aftertaste showing herbal characteristics.

In the dry aroma stage, Front Street Golden Mandheling has notes of pine, nuts, spices, and herbs. As hot water is poured, there are aromas of licorice and caramel. It tastes of dark chocolate, nuts, and spices, with an overall clean cup, obvious sweet aftertaste, and high body.

Front Street Coffee barista's brewing formula for Front Street Golden Mandheling

Brewing water temperature: 87–88°C

Coffee grounds: 15 grams

Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15

Dripper: KONO dripper

Grind size: medium-coarse grind (70% passing rate on China standard No. 20 sieve)

The brewing method uses a three-stage pouring method. Dividing the pour into three stages better expresses the rich mouthfeel and caramel sweetness of Golden Mandheling coffee.

In the first stage, pour 30 ml for blooming. This pour fully wets the coffee grounds and allows degassing, so that the coffee's flavor compounds can be extracted better afterward.

In the second stage, pour 100 ml. This stage mainly flushes out the golden foam of Mandheling and raises the coffee bed.

In the final stage, gently pour 95 ml in the center. This can enhance the coffee's sweetness.

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