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Crisis in coffee... or crisis in Tea? In 10 years working with coffee growers around Indonesia, I have spent very little time in the tea plantations that carpet the highlands of Java. I have always a

Posted by Alun Evans on January 2, 2009 at 3:27pm

Crisis in coffee... or crisis in Tea?In 10 years working with coffee growers around Indonesia, I have spent very little time in the tea plantations that carpet the highlands of Java. I have always assumed that as most of these are run by the Government or businessmen, then they would be more developed (in terms of infrastructure) than the thousands of small hold coffee growing villages around Indonesia. Indeed my visits in the past to tea plantations have always been to the accessible Government Estates such as Gunung Mas in West Java. This plantation is well run, has tidy housing, a nice school and clean and well stocked health center.This New Year I decided to spend time in the interior of Java, at a town up in the cold and misty clouds that blow across Java from the Indian Ocean to the Java Sea. This town is, well, isolated. Food is rice or noodles. Water is boiled, not bottled. This is about as isolated as you can find in the worlds most populated Island.The backbone of the community here is a tea plantation. This was once a Dutch administered Estate, but after Independence was taken over by a local businessman who's family has owned it ever since. The town, at the base of the valley, was built in the 1800's to support the Estate up on the ridge. My plan was to spend some time here with my family, who (to be honest) were not to impressed being away from the New Years Eve fireworks displays of the bigger cities, but were somewhat thankful for the fresh air, the cool breeze and the back to nature approach (well... maybe my words, not theirs!)Anyway, having wandered the archipelago and seen coffee smallholders from Takengon to Toraja, Sidikalang to Sumbawa, I consider myself to be pretty knowledgable about the living conditions of the coffee farmers of this country. Generally, although I know this is not true in other countries, farmers here live in clean and well ordered communities. However...The Tea Plantation was very different, well maybe I would substitute "different" for "disturbing". The housing here was rudimentary Nissan Hut type lodging built before the war...World War 2 that is, not the Iraq war! The roofing was rusty and the weatherboards leaking and damp. The strip housing was for the pickers, and sometimes there were several families sharing 2 small rooms. The better housing, on the hills, was used by the formen.Tea is by design normally grown in plantations, not 5-10 trees at a time, in backyards, like coffee is around Indonesia. The need to house the pickers is part and parcel of Estate Management. I supose back in the Dutch Colonial days the housing and facilites would have been pretty good. However, I think it is pretty clear that the private ownership of this particular facility has meant very little investment in the people and facilities here.The workers on the plantation were a very happy lot, no complaints. However I did notice a lot of the kids were not well, and (by Indonesian standards) thin.Tea in Indonesia is not regulated. Tea leaves are sold by auction to brokers acting on behalf of companies such as Twinings and Liptons. The auctions are for leaves that have been graded. Often the buyer will then instruct the plantation of how to "finish" the tea... drying degree, packaging etc. The plantation we visited had no drying and finishing facilities. The leaves trucked to the nearest big facility about 25km from here.
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