Front Street is a loyal fan of Mandheling coffee, and among FrontStreet Coffee's everyday beans, Mandheling is a hot seller. However, when first getting intoMandhelingcoffee, you might be startled by its herbal and full-bodied flavor. Your first reaction is probably: how can it be this bitter? Maybe it's just not what we're used to. But Front Street has noticed something: most friends who enjoy Mandheling coffee are men, with Golden Mandheling being especially popular, while women tend to prefer the fresh, bright flavors of Ethiopia.

Mandheling is an Asian bean, so its flavor is naturally fuller-bodied with herbal notes, and it is the representative coffee of Indonesia. Mandheling coffee is produced on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. Thanks to the naturally pollution-free land and special varieties,Mandhelingcoffee has a round, rich texture that becomes even more superb when paired with milk. With its intense body, heavy mouthfeel, excellent consistency, syrup-like roundness, and very low acidity, it has long been one of Asia's most popular single-origin coffees. After dark roasting, it develops rich woody notes and a cheese-like aroma, with prominent bitterness and mild acidity, finishing with a lingering astringency reminiscent of Bordeaux red wine.

If Mandheling coffee has such a flavor profile, then what about Golden Mandheling?Golden Mandhelingcoffee is the cream of the crop among Indonesian specialty coffees, superior to regular Mandheling in both quality and taste. Naturally, its price is also relatively higher.

So how is Golden Mandheling coffee distinguished? And how do you identify it?

Golden Mandhelingis produced in the Lintong region of North Sumatra, Indonesia. Harvesting is limited to fully hand-picked, single-cherry selection of fully ripe fruit to ensure initial bean selection quality. The coffee cherries undergo SEMI-WASHED processing, natural sun drying, and after hulling, another drying and refining process, plus two rounds of green bean cleaning and four rounds of Hand-Pick manual sorting.

PWN Company follows extremely strict standards when producing Golden Mandheling coffee beans. Under Indonesia's highest coffee grade standard, G1, they add three rounds of manual hand sorting, ensuring appearance quality and greatly reducing the defect rate. The PWN Golden Mandheling selected this way presents uniform color and consistent bean shape. When tasted, it not only lacks the earthy off-flavors typical of regular Mandheling, but its taste is even cleaner and more transparent, with a stronger sweetness.

The quality of PWN Golden Mandheling is also reflected in its price. Some merchants, in order to sell theirMandheling coffee beansfor a good price, label them as "Golden Mandheling" for sale, without indicating whether they come from PWN Company. To make their appearance as similar as possible to PWN Golden Mandheling, some merchants select G1 grade coffee beans of 18 mesh or above from regular Mandheling coffee beans, then add three rounds of manual hand sorting, all to approximate the appearance of PWN's Golden Mandheling. Even if the appearance can be brought as close as possible, the taste of PWN Golden Mandheling is hard to imitate.

The baristas at FrontStreet Coffee have conducted blind tastings of multiple Golden Mandheling coffee beans, and they could all precisely identify PWN Company's Golden Mandheling. This is because PWN'sGolden Mandhelinghas a clean taste that other Golden Mandheling coffees simply cannot match.

PWN stands for Pawani, a famous Indonesian green bean purchasing company that mainly targets Mandheling coffee varieties for acquisition, having completely bought up premium coffee-growing regions in Indonesia. High-quality Mandheling coffee all comes from Pawani. The company was founded in 1957, initially dealing in rubber. Because of frequent business dealings with Japanese merchants, a Japanese company asked them to find the Mandheling they loved. So they went to the Gayo area of Aceh Province to collect good Arabica green bean sources. After many rounds of sending samples and trying, they finally found Mandheling that met the requirements.

In other words, only PWN Company's Golden Mandheling is truly Golden Mandheling in the real sense.

Golden Mandheling coffeeVariety

Indonesia has a very long history of coffee cultivation. It used to grow Arabica, but due to leaf rust disease, currently 90% of Indonesia's coffee bean exports are Robusta, with only 10% being Arabica. FrontStreet Coffee's new-season Golden Mandheling is produced in the Gayo Mountains of Aceh, North Sumatra. The variety is Ateng, which 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.

The Gayo Mountains of Aceh are in the northernmost corner of Sumatra. Coffee cultivation in the Gayo Mountains mainly centers around the town of Takegon and the hillsides beside Lake Tawar. The average altitude in the production area is between 1,100 and 1,600 meters. The coffee quality here has always been excellent, but due to previous political instability, coffee from this region was difficult to export. In recent years, with the situation becoming peaceful, coffee cultivation in Aceh has also developed, with quality surpassing that of the Lintong region.

Golden Mandheling coffee processing method:

Front Street believes that the flavor of any coffee is inextricably linked to its processing method, and it could be said to directly influence the coffee's flavor. Due to Indonesia's year-round hot and humid climate and lack of water sources, Indonesian coffee farmers developed a way to better dry coffee beans while saving water — the wet hulling method, 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 layer before drying. Teacher Han Huaizong described it as a rare processing method in the world, accidentally creating Mandheling's distinctive low acidity, thick body, and funky aroma. Golden Mandheling coffee uses this locally common wet hulling method.

Why is most Mandheling roasted to medium-dark?

Front Street has noticed that in the past, Mandheling coffee on the market was uniformly medium-dark roasted, presenting the classic rich black coffee flavor profile. With the development of specialty coffee culture in recent years, people have begun pursuing more unique coffee flavors, and many merchants offer medium roast or even medium-light roast Mandheling. The lighter the roast, the more acidity the coffee beans retain, with flavors dominated by fruit, herbs, and tea notes, and lower body. Some customers have asked Front Street: since medium-light roasted Mandheling is so fresh, why not roast it lighter?

Friends who regularly drink Mandheling probably know about Sumatra's wet hulling method. In wet hulling, before the final drying stage, the beans are poured into a huller, where greater friction is used to tear open the semi-dry parchment layer clinging to the green beans. Through the friction and agitation, the green beans are easily crushed or damaged. The "naked beans" with the parchment removed dry very quickly, but are also directly exposed to the humid environment, becoming susceptible to various bacteria.

Although wet hulling indeed gives Mandheling its unique herbal and woody aroma, it also causes a higher defect rate in green beans. Dark roasting perfectly masks this flaw. Additionally, Mandheling's fame originated from early discovery by the Japanese. Given their taste preferences, they love Japanese-style dark roasting most — this is why most Mandheling is roasted so dark. Front Street hopes what you drink is the classic Mandheling taste, so both Mandheling coffees Front Street sells daily use medium-dark roasting, including the Lintong region Mandheling everyday beans and the Aceh region PWN Golden Mandheling coffee.

So how do you hand-brew this Golden Mandheling coffee?

Coffee beans can be light roast or dark roast, and the techniques differ. Golden Mandheling coffee beans are dark roasted, so the water temperature should not be too high, and a Kono dripper is chosen. The low water temperature is because you don't want to extract too many off-flavors. Dark roasted coffee itself has abundant aromatic substances that are released the moment water is poured. If you continue using light roast water temperatures for extraction, it will lead to over-extraction, and the coffee will most likely taste sour, bitter, and astringent. So Front Street lowers the water temperature a bit. The brewing temperature for light roast coffee is 91-93°C, while for medium-dark roast coffee beans, Front Street recommends 87-88°C.

FrontStreet Coffee chose the Kono dripper because the V60 dripper has too fast a flow rate, which under low water temperature conditions easily leads to under-extraction. The Kono dripper has few ribs and they are located at the bottom. The filter paper clings tightly to the dripper, which can restrict airflow, extending the contact time between water and coffee grounds, allowing the coffee grounds to be fully extracted and enhancing the full-bodied taste.

Front Street's Golden Mandheling brewing parameters:

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

Using pulse pouring, bloom with 2 times the coffee dose in water, i.e., 30g of water for a 30-second bloom. The reason for the bloom process is to allow the coffee grounds to release internal carbon dioxide gas, making the subsequent extraction more stable. Pour in a slow circular stream until reaching 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; extraction time is 2'00". Then pick up the entire cup of coffee, swirl to mix evenly, and pour into a cup for tasting.

【PWNGolden Mandheling Coffee Bean Flavor】: The coffee has a varied overall layering, full-bodied and clean, with rich nut and caramel aromas, chocolate notes, a lasting finish, and high balance.

FrontStreet Coffee has over fifty single-origin coffee beans from different regions, fully able to meet the needs of coffee friends! Different regions, different flavors — welcome to FrontStreet Coffee to explore and experience!

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