Wonosari plantation Indonesian green tea

An interesting tea from the Wonosari tea plantation; a nice one to follow-up the initial travel-blog themed post about visiting Indonesia recently.   The appearance is unusual,  a dull light green, presented as folded bundles of tea.  Somehow the color seemed a little flat, if that makes sense.


The initial taste was vegetal, towards grassy, but more in the range of spinach and green peppers.  I was reminded of a recent experience with a Thai green tea thinking that someone else more into green teas might really like the tea.


There was a little mustiness to the flavor as well.  That also reminded me of that Thai tea. I had initially thought it related to freshness but per the owner of Monsoon teas it was more an attribute of the plant type,  a local "wild" Assamica strain.  And of course it could also relate to terroir, and processing could come into play.


About freshness, the "use-by" date on the package gave the tea another two years, really too long for a green tea even if it had been made in the past month, but without knowing how long they thought it could last I wouldn't know that origin date (without asking about all that directly--a bit of gap there on my part).  Since they were cutting tea then (we saw someone doing it), and since Northern Hemisphere seasons don't mean much on the equator (8 degrees South of it, if memory serves), it's hard to say what they were doing for harvest seasons.

about freshness, not sure how long shelf-life is

The next infusion was a lot cleaner in flavor.  I'm out of the habit of doing rinses but it occurred to me that it might work to experiment with that for this tea; essentially throw out the first short infusion to get better results in general.  I have a cold so the aspects were coming through across a compromised palate but I'll give description a go.  I thought to try it a second time, and did the next day, buy my sense of taste seemed completely gone at that point, so I think my cold is getting worse.  If I thought it would change things I'd have held off on posting this but I'm sure a few more details would emerge, but doubt the general impression or review would.


The vegetal aspects toned down a good bit after the first infusion.  More mineral elements started coming to the fore.  I had wondered how volcanic soil would affect this tea (there were volcanoes everywhere;  clearly we were standing on an older one), and it seemed likely that was part of background for that aspect.  It wasn't the same rock effect found in Wuyi Yancha,  a little closer to Vietnamese teas, but not that either, richer and earthier and less dry, not so much like shale or granite.  I'd like to think it was like a black sand beach smell,  but it's been awhile since I've been to one, or to that active volcano in Hawaii where brand-new rock is all around.


Other nice aspects joined in, a fruitiness.  It was hard to separate particular fruit, maybe towards blueberry,  or a light sweet tropical counterpart.  I have tried the herb that Fruit Loops cereal tastes so much like that it almost seems to be based on it, pandan; maybe like that.  And this seems a good place for a tangent.


To begin with, Fruit Loops isn't based on pandan, it's just a coincidence that the mix of artificial and natural flavors end up sort of close to there (and it turns out that the different colored loops all taste the same--crazy; I could swear Toucan Sam said otherwise).  Pandan is an herb described as one used in the same way vanilla is in some references (like Wikipedia; that's digging deep into the research).  Don't take my word for it that pandan tastes like Fruit Loops, though (just better); here is a Michelin-starred restaurant dish review that makes the same comparison:


A delicate, paper-thin slice of steamed sponge cake is soaked in pandan syrup and topped with pandan ice cream, milk gelato, and candied pistachios. The long green leaves of the Southeast Asian pandan plant lend an aromatic, fruity flavor that is startlingly reminiscent of Fruit Loops (of all things), making the addition of the milk gelato even better—like cereal milk.

tea plantation workers; friendly as everyone in general was

Back to it then; astringency in that tea was limited.  All in all it was a nice tea, good complexity,  interesting range of developing flavors from one single tea.  It might have been lots better when fresh, or maybe that was relatively fresh.  Although I literally bought the tea from the people that made it (and who did plantation tours) we didn't talk much about the tea, at all.

Mt. Bromo!  so cool it's hard to really take it in

I'd stayed awake almost the whole night before to climb a local, very active volcano (ok, really the next one over; we went up Mt. Penanjakan to see Mt. Bromo), so it was hard enough to focus in and not leave tea behind.  They also sold a good range of tea bag tea, which I did leave behind.


It's a good start for Indonesian teas but I wasn't under the impression I found the best of what they had to offer.  Subsequent discussion indicates there are probably more and likely enough better plantations in the West and center of Java island, and also on other islands (Sumatra in particular, as I recall, but I'll get back with a bit more research in another post).  I think by messing around a little with that tea I tried you could get a little more out of it, find the complexity it had to offer, and I will do just that, later, without a cold.  I also bought black tea and a white tea from them, and green and white from another shop, and some commercial teas, so I'll get back about more of those along with more to say about Indonesian tea in general.

More on Indonesia:

kind of normal looking residential areas

That was already the natural stopping point for that post; I gave a rough idea what the tea was like, and admitted to not knowing that much about it given that I was right there at the source.  There are some other teas to review, so I'll have ample space for going on about whatever, with more plantation research the one part I've promised, but I don't feel like I've really communicated much of what Indonesia was really like.  Somehow it deserves that, since it was different than I expected, nicer in a lot of ways.

It didn't really feel as much like a developing nation to me as most of the rest of South East Asia.  Some of that might be that the rough edges are just familiar now (I've been here for 8 years), so I'm just more comfortable with seeing shacks next to modern hotels or malls, or however that goes.  But I don't think that was it.

2nd class train, a great option to have

It was less Western too, so malls and convenience stores weren't quite as predominant as in Thailand, but at the same time the rough edges weren't quite as rough.  According to whatever development indexes the UN and such use it probably wasn't past the middle of the curve but they'd went their own way, and it wasn't a country rushing from a traditional agricultural society to Western infrastructure and shopping, with tourism and manufacturing as a base.  Ok, maybe tourism was the foundation in Bali, but not so much in Java.

As an example, we took both an ordinary class and a more premium class train on Java, both of which were nearly free compared to anything I've researched from Amtrak (which I never took; always too much cheaper and faster to fly).  Any train travel except high-speed options might seem a bit second-rate, to some, but I love trains, all types of them.  In Thailand and Vietnam they go the next step and offer sleeper cars, like a tiny budget hotel room but with a WW II era miliatry ship feel to it, but it was still great to have multiple, inexpensive options like those in Indonesia.


I'd guess it had to do with a long history of being a Dutch colony, the kind of thing Thailand is proud to not have in their own background.  Places like Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam don't really play up that background, at least in most places, although it's there in old architecture in some, related to the French influence.  To me the culture was also their own; without much concern about where they stand or how their development was going, if anything just a bit inquisitive related to still being somewhat isolated (again, not Bali, but that's essentially a resort island).  My wife didn't care for hearing the Islamic temples' call to prayer during normal sleeping hours but to me it was great how religion and culture weren't really an issue.  Until we tried to buy beer; odd you'd just expect that to be available everywhere, outside a place like Saudi Arabia, but not so much there.


The people were great too, but that starts a drift into me just being attached to the trip and those experiences.  People are ok everywhere, according my own limited experience, but Indonesia was really worth a look.

Tea in Indonesia; one vacation's worth of experiences

Time to shift to travel-blog mode; I just spent a long week in Indonesia.  Tea was a part of it.  I visited a plantation there, and bought 8 or 9 versions of teas over the week.  Only one type and two products, white teas, versions of silver needle, seemed to be sold as higher end "specialty tea," but I've not tried any of it, so we'll see how it shakes out.  This post is about what I saw and did, so I'll check back in with the more standard reviews.

Nusa Dua beach in Bali; nice enough

Indonesia:  background

Mt. Bromo, Java, doing what volcanoes do

girl scout / unofficial translator in Yogjakarta

Indonesia is awesome.  We saw ancient temples, beaches, and volcanoes, two active ones.  All that spanned two islands, Java and Bali.  It was interesting to change environment and cultures so much within one country like that.  For example, Islam is the main religion in Java, but Hinduism is in Bali.  Bali is really developed for tourism but Java is so quiet and at the opposite extreme that cheerful little kids say hello just to practice their English.



I really won't do justice to all that we experienced but I should mention that the people were great, one of the best parts.  Taxi drivers and tour salesman looking for business in Kuta were an exception--that could get old--but in general it was wonderful that nearly everyone was so genuine and kind.  I live in Thailand (Bangkok), so I'm used to a very friendly culture here, but the people seemed just a little warmer and more sincere.  I've ran across really helpful people throughout Asia, even where cultural stereotyping runs in the opposite direction, so to me people are generally decent everywhere, it's more about how most come across.

It made for an odd contrast hearing news about people being suspicious of Muslims in general (and of course that related terrorism is a real thing), when I was talking to people on an hourly basis that were so consistently some of the nicest people I've ever met.


One person commented online that they might seem one way on the surface and be too repressed to show their real internal conflict over societal pressures.  I'll just add my opinion on that:  no, they're all good, a lot less conflicted and wound up than the American stereotypical persona goes.  Americans are fine too, by the way, you've just got to get used to a wide range of how they express themselves, and the odd idea mixed in, but being one it seems normal to me, most of it.

maybe this guy should do another kind of work

One guy we met wasn't very nice.  One Hindu temple on Bali ran a light version of a tour-guide scam, where they required a "guide" go with you to describe restrictions.  We visited a lot of temples there; only that one did that (Pura Besakih; their main temple complex, so odd it worked out like that).  He was the only person that wasn't pleasant or helpful; odd he was working in the role of guide then.


As they say, the exception proves the rule.  Traveling for a week in any country and running across only one person that's not nice is not bad.  Taxi pricing varied a lot, which people might take different ways, but that's just routine for SE Asian travel, and easy to work around.

Tampak Siring Holy Spring Water Temple, Bali

In general the feel of the places we went was also great, incredible sights and natural phenomena, temples with an amazing vibe, each so different from the last.  That wasn't as pronounced in the more urban or crowded places but even those were nice.


But I'm getting way off the subject of tea.

they really do this, carry things around that way

Online research

In the past I've done extensive online research prior to some trips, to try and pin down where I'd run across tea, shops and such.  This time I didn't.  But I still wanted to mention how one might go about that, and what worked or didn't work in this case, from the limited research I did do.

Steepster shop listings, Adagio Tea Map:  only "tea people / enthusiasts" would be familiar with these website references, which would list out lots of options for countries like the US or UK.  For Asian countries they're not really helpful.  One might still check, but they're not likely to add much.



Google / Google Maps:  lots more to go on through Google, and with Maps the great part is letting you know how close places are to where you are standing.  The problem:  not everything gets listed, because small companies aren't necessarily caught up on internet marketing, or at least aren't in English, so only a search in the native language might find them.  The plantation I visited outside Malang, Java did turn up on Maps; the franchise-chain shop in a high-end mall in Kuta, Bali did not.  Or I think it is actually a dot on this map, but the normal extra clicks identifying if they carry more than bubble-tea didn't work out, and Google had their hours completely wrong.


Online networking:  interesting, and potentially helpful, if one has the time for such things.  This approach did turn up the only tea shop that sold me tea, talking about what I was looking for in a Facebook group related to Indonesia.  I tried the same on an expat forum group related to Indonesia, in this discussion, and some comments seemed promising, but nothing worked out there.  If you can ask a tea blogger living in a foreign country what to look for there that can short-cut a lot of all that, but it didn't work to find one in this case.

Ijen volcano, East Java.  miners gather sulfur, but those are tourists (it was a national holiday that day)

Visiting a tea plantation in Java (Wonosari, outside Malang)

My first visit to a tea plantation!  Oddly it's the second time I've visited where tea was being grown, and that first time I talked to the farmer and bought tea, and walked around coffee and tea plants.  That was in Laos, in the Bolaven plateau, but that was more a small farm than a plantation.  The country I live in now, Thailand, produces tea, and I may have seen it in passing in the Chiang Rai area on earlier visits, but I wasn't really into tea back then, there last maybe six years ago.

Bromo again; cool!

The write-up about the plantation is going to seem a bit thin, because the visit was short due to not sleeping the night before, related to visiting a volcano starting at 1 AM.  Mt. Bromo was about to erupt (more on that here).  It was putting out lots of smoke and ash, and recent earthquakes had caused the national park to close the mountain, so we saw it from the next mountain over, Penanjakan.

That was probably from a safe distance, but then it seems that about once a decade a volcano does something really unpredictable in Indonesia and people die that had really seemed safe, so I'm happy to have not been one of them.  A guide told us there are currently 19 active volcanoes on Java, and in researching earthquake activity there were more than 500 in the Indonesian region in the past year, so it's just what they live with.  

A recent earthquake summary as of now:

35 earthquakes in the past 7 days

80 earthquakes in the past month

594 earthquakes in the past year

from November; nothing to worry about, most are underwater, and somehow tsunami's are still rare

Tea!

The Wonosari plantation is just a bit under an hour's drive north of Malang.  It's really not that far away, but traffic is a bit much in that area, especially for it being so rural.  Upon entering we saw rows of well-tended plants, surrounded by some type of local tree (not sure what the point of that was), along with people harvesting some of the tea.  

I really should be able to fill in details about the role of those trees, or harvest timing or processing, or how they make the teas, and so on, but can't.  We essentially didn't sleep the night before, and it was around lunch time, so picking up some tea and moving on seemed enough.  If my wife were a lot more into tea, or at least drank it, I'd have probably drank a liter of tea and went on with a tour, but she doesn't and I didn't.

Wonosari plantation:  idyllic

I bought a black, green, and white (silver needle type), but it was a busy week and I didn't set aside an extra half hour to do a tasting.  The more relaxed and quiet I am the more I seem to pick up from a tea, so ran-ragged on a busy vacation schedule my impression might have been limited anyway.  

They also produced and sold a few types of tea-bag tea there, which I didn't buy.  If I run across more details prior to writing about the tea I'll add it in another post.  I might mention it was set up like a very informal resort and residence area, nothing like the horrors one keeps hearing about Indian tea plantations lately--and looked like the kind of place I'd want to live in.  That general travel reference site I mentioned--the plantation itself doesn't have a website--said:

Facilities: swimming pool, cottages, jogging tracks area, camping grounds, and many other.

an easy choice

It might sound like I stopped drinking tea for a week on the trip but it wasn't like that, although I did cut back.  Once in awhile I would make tea I'd brought with me at the hotel, I was just a bit busy to do that daily.  They served tea with breakfasts at the hotels, just nothing really interesting.  

At the Prambanan temple near Yogjakarta we waited out a short rain shower at an entry room where they served a surprisingly good jasmine black tea, probably with potential to be even nicer with more careful brewing, but that was an exception.  Indonesians drink and produce and tea (#6 on this list by production amount, ahead of both Vietnam and Japan per this reference), but coffee is more prevalent.

Tea shop in Kuta, Bali (Rollas, in Beachwalk mall)

Rollas tea and coffee shop, chain-store

The other place I bought tea was in Rollas tea shop in Kuta, Bali, with main company website here.  Kuta is a resort area that's sort of an urban hell as Bali resort areas go, like Waikiki, Honolulu, but with a bit less charm.  Plenty of build-up, right?  

I couldn't find any mention of anyone growing tea in Bali; they do coffee, and this tea supposedly comes from Eastern Java, possibly from the same plantation I visited (Wonosari).  I recall reading a reference that said otherwise, but I'll get back with more research on that.

  

open-air, familiar from Hawaii

I've not tried that tea either, yet, so what else to say.  A coffee lover could find 1000 versions of coffee in Bali but at best one would find tea from the next island over, the one we'd just come from.  Of course there are always exceptions, just not easy to turn those up there.

Any normal tea-lover would have just bought some tea and also stopped for a cup, given the nice cafe atmosphere.  That mall, Beachwalk, reminded me of one in Honolulu, Ala Moana.  I was busy though, torn between swimming and Christmas shopping, and mall environments are a little too familiar from living in Bangkok, so I didn't do that.

Commercial tea

tea in a Malang grocery store

Grocery store tea, written up in a blog post, WTH?  After I try what I bought I'll have more opinion if this is the rare exception where that sourcing really does work, or if this is more low-grade tea-leaf abomination.  I bought a commercial tea in Cambodia nearly three years ago that was quite reasonable, and cost next to nothing, but I've had more bad experiences with that sort of tea than good ones since.  

It's a gamble.  Being an optimist I'm hopeful.  This also relates to how one appreciates novelty in teas, or teas across a range of types and quality levels.  If someone spends thousands of dollars a year on the best teas sourced from the best producers around the world chances are slim that a grocery store tea from anywhere is going to cut it.  If someone is so open they can actually appreciate tea-bag teas of different types then this would probably work out, maybe just not for every example I bought.  I tend to save the tea-bag teas for emergencies.  I brewed one tea bag in a hotel there, with the results being what you'd expect.

surfing Lego Santa, Bali

For reference about the pricing of teas in this earlier picture currently one US dollar exchanges for about 13,800 rupiah, so that tea is nearly free. 

Value for those teas I bought is good, but of course that relates to not just cost but actually liking the tea, so maybe too early to say that.  The three teas I bought small amounts of cost around $2, as I recall.  For all of it.  If I knew anyone that really loved teas as I do where I live I'd have splurged for the extra $2 and included them in the gamble, but I'm sort of on my own with the tea thing here.  

cool statue, wearing a sarong

Overview:

The trip wasn't about tea, but then I suppose that was already clear enough.  Looking through those pictures there are 100 others that stand out as a good representation of great aspects of Indonesia.  As amazing as the temples, volcanoes, and beaches were the people were just as great.  

As far as recommendations for visiting, it might have been better to start in Bali, and not spend much time in Kuta (the urban resort area), then go to Java after.  I wasn't concerned or even curious about what a Muslim-based culture would be like since we've been to Malaysia a couple times, and the answer may not be what you'd expect:  just like anywhere else.  Women tend to wear head covers (hijab; more on what that is here), beer isn't sold in as many places; otherwise no different, aside from how places naturally vary.

One nice girl we sat by on the train in Eastern Java decided for herself not to wear a hijab two years prior, even though she is Muslim.  No need to extrapolate much from that, except to say that pre-conceptions about their culture and religious observations may not hold up.

As for doing more with tea there, it depends on what you are into.  We could have skipped all those other sights and headed straight for plantations, but it would seem odd to miss so many once-in-a-lifetime sights to focus in on tea.  But then I live in Thailand now, so it's kind of local, and I can just go back.