Sumatra Mandheling DP "Harimau Tiger"

I am not generally a huge fan of low-acid Indonesian coffees, though they are a nice change of pace. I was running low on my (already limited) stock of Sumatra, so I decided to pick some of this coffee up. A lot of people like Sumatra, and I give a lot of coffee away, so I decided to be a good citizen.

Sumatras can be somewhat on the softer side, and the altitude they are grown at can be lower than many other origins, so I was gentle with the profile. The mid temperature was 440 degrees, about 10 degrees lower than I would have it for, say, an Ethiopia or Central American bean.



This roast drove me batty. For a while I was convinced that my roaster wasn't working correctly. There was no sound whatsoever at first crack, and little to no chaff released. This is very odd for a dry-processed coffee, which tend to shed a lot of chaff. Combine that with the fact that this coffee colors very slowly, and it was a bit of a guessing game to complete the roast. In the end I had to rely entirely on my nose.

Colors can really trick you when roasting. For instance, Sumatras stay quite light through most of the roast, even into second crack. If you rely on this as an indicator, you are toast. On the other end of the spectrum are Kenyan coffees, which are darker than normal for the degree of roast. You really need to use all your senses when you are roasting.

Anyway, despite the tricky roast, this turned out to be a really good coffee. My notes read:

Aroma: Maple syrup, cedar wood, sweet sandalwood
Taste: Very clean for a Sumatra. Foresty, sweet, surprising amount of snap, sorghum, woody

This coffee addresses a lot of what I dislike in Sumatra coffee. There is no wet bogginess, not too much funk. It has a surprising amount of acidity, and is very sweet. If you want a cleaned up Indonesian cup, this one's for you.

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Addendum 12/9/08

I roasted more of this for a friend, and took it into second crack. Somewhat surprisingly, I was not happy with it. There was no character except burnt wood. This particular bean seems happiest at Full City, perhaps consistent with its "cleaned up" Indonesian character.