When it comes to Asian coffee beans, the most familiar is Front Street Indonesia Mandheling coffee. It is the most representative Asian bean, and was once called the world's most full-bodied coffee. Friends who don't like acidic coffee can try this Front Street Mandheling coffee. Mandheling coffee has a rich mouthfeel, and most have herbal and dark chocolate flavors. Front Street believes that those who like this Front Street Mandheling coffee can't put it down and order it every time. Those who don't like it will turn up their noses and call it dishwater. Many friends who are just getting into specialty coffee are confused by the strong flavor of Mandheling coffee and mistakenly think it is Robusta coffee.

Sumatra Mandheling Coffee Beans

Sumatra Mandheling coffee is a famous specialty coffee from Indonesia, and also a popular Indonesian coffee bean among Front Street's daily drinking beans. Indonesia is located in Southeast Asia, and its coffee history dates back to 1696, when Dutch coffee farmers tried to find broader coffee-growing land. After much exploration, they finally settled on Indonesia's Java Island. Over 30 years, Indonesia had already laid a sufficient foundation in the coffee market. However, today the representative of Indonesian coffee is actually Mandheling from Sumatra. This is actually not a surprising result, because from the beginning most of the Java coffee sold to Europe came from the Sumatra region, and Mandheling comes from Sumatra. So Sumatra can be said to be an important coffee-producing region in Indonesia.

So what exactly is Golden Mandheling coffee?

Front Street Mandheling coffee is a specialty coffee from Indonesia, so Front Street Golden Mandheling is the cream of Indonesia's specialty coffees. So is it more premium than Mandheling? Front Street tells everyone: Golden Mandheling is not a grade, but a trademark registered by the Indonesian company N.V. Pawani Medan (PWN). Founded in 1957, it engages in the export of Indonesian products such as coffee, rubber, cinnamon, cloves, and patchouli oil. It is the first company in Indonesia to export coffee from North Sumatra, and the first company to make "Mandheling coffee" famous in Japan.

Since 1977, the company has focused on the export of premium coffee beans: Sumatra Arabica Coffee Mandheling Grade 1 and Robusta Coffee AP-I Grade 2. Its main export destinations are Japan, Taiwan region of China, and the United States, with exports to Japan and Taiwan region of China accounting for more than 95%. In Japan and Taiwan region of China, "PWN" has become synonymous with "quality assurance." Pawani Coffee holds the "Golden Mandheling" trademark, so Japanese companies had to register another trademark, "Gold Top Mandheling."

PWN Golden MandhelingSince it is the cream of specialty coffee, its price is naturally more expensive than ordinary Mandheling. In order to sell their Mandheling coffee beans at a good price, some merchants label them as "Golden Mandheling" for sale, without indicating whether they come from PWN. The Front Street Golden Mandheling coffee beans currently sold by FrontStreet Coffee come from PWN's Golden Mandheling coffee beans. After harvesting and drying, PWN Golden Mandheling coffee beans undergo at least three rounds of hand sorting to ensure that the bean size reaches 18 or above and that there are fewer than 3 defective beans (in a 300g green bean sample), belonging to the highest grade, G1. Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling green beans are darker green in color, and the beans are neat flat beans.

Golden MandhelingCoffee Variety

FrontStreet Coffee's new-crop Golden Mandheling comes from the Gayo Mountains in Aceh, North Sumatra. The variety is Ateng. Ateng is a hybrid between Arabica and Robusta, widely planted in Sumatra and other small Indonesian islands. Ateng is actually the local name for Catimor coffee. Catimor was created in 1959, when the Portuguese moved the Brazilian Bourbon mutation Caturra to East Timor and crossed it with Timor, which has Robusta bloodlines. It has extremely high disease resistance and is three times the productivity of Typica. During the leaf rust crisis, the Indonesian government did not only introduce Robusta (whose flavor is very different from Arabica), but also introduced Timor to East Timor, intending to replace Typica. Later investigations by experts showed that a batch of Timor seeds introduced by the Indonesian government in 1980 was mixed with some Catimor seeds. This batch of seeds was planted in Aceh in northern Sumatra, and the area in Indonesia where Catimor was first detected was Central Aceh, so locals also call Catimor Ateng, taken from Aceh Tengah (Central Aceh).

The Gayo Mountains in Aceh are in the northernmost corner of Sumatra Island. Coffee cultivation in the Gayo Mountains mainly centers around Takegon town and the hillsides beside Lake Tawar. The average altitude in the production area is between 1100 and 1600 meters. Its coffee quality has always been excellent, but due to previous political instability, coffee from this region was difficult to export. In recent years the situation has become peaceful, and coffee cultivation in Aceh has also developed, with quality superior to that of the Lindong region.

Front Street PWN Golden MandhelingThe quality requirements are even stricter. First, the coffee beans must be 19 screen size, plump, and uniform. Then they must undergo one mechanical sorting and three rounds of hand sorting to ensure the defect rate of the green beans. Undoubtedly, this is a vote of confidence in the coffee quality of the Aceh Gayo Mountain production area.

Golden Mandheling Coffee Processing Method:

Front Street Mandheling CoffeeThat unique flavor is fundamentally related to the processing method. Due to Indonesia's year-round hot and humid climate and lack of water, Indonesian coffee farmers developed a way to better dry coffee beans while saving water, so that the beans could be better removed and dried—wet hulling, also known as Wet Hulling, which is also the standard processing method for Mandheling coffee beans. The wet-hulling process is characterized by staged, rapid drying and removing the parchment before drying. Teacher Han Huaizong described it as "a rare processing method in the world, accidentally creatingMandheling's distinctive low acidity, thick body, and earthy aroma. AndFront Street PWN Golden Mandheling Coffeealso uses the wet-hulling process.

Front Street believes thatFront Street PWN Golden Mandheling, as a specialty coffee unique to Indonesia, and carefully selected Front Street Golden Mandheling, has plump beans, a rich aroma when drunk, and a mouthfeel that is more intense, round, and mellow than ordinary Mandheling, with a slightly sweet finish after drinking!Front Street Golden Mandhelingcan be said to have the title of an undefeated legend among straight coffees.

So how should you hand-brew these Front Street Golden Mandheling coffee beans?

Coffee beans can be light-roasted or dark-roasted, and the points to note for hand brewing are also different.Front Street Golden Mandheling Coffee Beansare dark-roasted beans, so the water temperature should not be too high, and a Kono dripper is chosen. The reason for the lower water temperature is not wanting to extract too many miscellaneous flavors. When FrontStreet Coffee chooses dark roasting, too many aromatic substances have already been released. If you continue to extract with the water temperature used for light roasting, over-extraction will occur. The reason FrontStreet Coffee chooses the Kono dripper is that the V60 dripper has too fast a flow rate and, under low water temperature conditions, tends to under-extract. The Kono dripper has few ribs and they are located at the lower end, so the filter paper fits tightly against the dripper, which can restrict airflow, increase the contact time between water and coffee grounds, allow the coffee grounds to be fully extracted, and enhance the full-bodied mouthfeel.

Parameters for Front Street brewing Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling Coffee:

Water temperature: 88°C, coffee dose: 15g, coffee-to-water ratio: 1:15, grind size: medium-fine grind (70% passing a No. 20 sieve).

Use staged extraction. Use twice the coffee dose in water for blooming, that is, 30g of water for a 30-second bloom. The reason blooming is needed is to allow the coffee grounds to release internal carbon dioxide gas, thereby making the later extraction more stable. Pour in a small stream in circles until 125g, then pause, continue pouring until 225g and stop. After the water in the dripper has dripped through, remove the dripper. Start timing from the beginning of pouring; the extraction time is 2'00". Next, pick up the whole cup of coffee and swirl it to mix evenly, then pour it into a cup for tasting.

[Front StreetPWN Golden Mandheling Coffee Bean Flavor]: The coffee as a whole has multiple layers, is full-bodied and clean, with rich nutty and caramel aromas, chocolate notes, a long finish, and high balance.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Suggestions

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

Of course, some customers need Front Street to help grind the coffee. That is also fine, but Front Street must remind you: once coffee beans are ground in advance, they no longer need resting, because during transportation the pressure from carbon dioxide inside the packaging can also make the coffee flavor rounder, so once you receive the coffee grounds you can immediately brew a cup and drink it. However, the coffee grounds need to be brewed promptly, because after coffee grounds contact air they oxidize relatively quickly. In other words, the coffee's flavor will dissipate relatively quickly, and the coffee will not taste as good. Therefore, Front Street recommends buying whole beans, grinding fresh and brewing fresh, so you can better taste the coffee's flavor.

This Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling in Front Street's stores has always been the most popular! And among Front Street's daily drinking bean series, Front Street Indonesia Lindong Mandheling Coffee is also an affordable and popular seller! In addition to Indonesian coffee beans, there are also dozens of single-origin beans from different producing regions in South America and Africa. You are welcome to come and experience them!

For professional coffee knowledge exchange and more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style)

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