Indonesian teas: an overview

Originally published as:  www.tching.com/2016/07/indonesian-teas-overview/

I vacationed in Indonesia not so long ago and more recently ran across some exceptional Indonesian teas.  I'll try to say just a little about Indonesia and describe the teas I've tried, definitely a tall order for a short article.

This interest started for me during a visit to Java and Bali last December.  I went through a similar discovery process after visiting Vietnam awhile back (we live in Bangkok, so both are sort of local travel).

a helpful girl scout

I absolutely love delving into new regions, and beyond tea Indonesia is amazing, crowded with ancient temples and active volcanoes, and ringed by beaches.  There are 45 active volcanoes on Java island alone (more on those here).  My wife considered cancelling the trip last December after hearing about earthquake activity there (see this related reference) but all that isn't as scary and dangerous as it might sound, just normal for them.


The people were among the warmest, friendliest people I've met in any country, even compared to Thais, who really do smile more than most people.

How Indonesian tea is unique, about regional variation

Wonosari tea plantation, outside Yogjakarta, Java

It's difficult to specify common traits in teas from a region like Darjeeling, although some patterns of styles and tea characteristics do stand out, but for whatever reason it works better for a country like Thailand.  Indonesia is a bit different.  Climate and volcanic soil types provide a common growing context, to some extent, but types of plants grown and styles of teas are still evolving there, especially for better specialty teas.

Articles in popular press tend to claim that few Indonesians are aware of this category of tea, of better versions of tea produced there.  The claim is that the best teas tend to be exported (the opposite of what one hears about countries like China), although to some extent that is probably starting to change.  Galung Atri, one owner and tea maker at the Toba Wangi plantation, a newer family ran tea business, says that most of his teas are still consumed within Indonesia. Some are from local Assamica plants, other from modern hybrid cultivars imported from Taiwan (in particular using the Si Ji Chun / Four Seasons plant type), with style and processing influences from China and Japan.

Galun's own input about the teas and processing is interesting (with more background in the linked profile interview):


We have two plantations as I mentioned before, both growing a single clone tea plant type, Sijicun for Sinensis, and Gambung 7 for Assamica (best for white tea).  The oldest tree just around 5.5 years old, and the youngest one just one years old...  

I have more background with the Wuyi style techniques...[and] prefer the Wuyi styles the most.  I tend to modify processing a bit for my technique.   ...producing this Chinese style tea is more like an art.  It depends on climate, weather, plucking time, condition etc., and China and Indonesia are really different in terms of growing conditions.  

My experiences with Indonesian commercial teas

Mt. Bromo, smoking a little more than normal then

They aren't bad.  A range of teas are sold in grocery stores that might not be acceptable for slightly spoiled tea enthusiasts but the teas are far better than standard versions of Western tea-bag tea, and might cost even less, quite close to free.  Jasmine black tea is a common local style, of course with green and black tea also sold.  Oolongs are not so commonly produced, but buds-only silver needle-style white teas are more widely available.


There are plantations in both the East and West of Java.  It's perhaps not exactly their main island, since Indonesia doesn't seem set up that way, but it is relatively populated island with Jakarta located there.  Different plantations would make different types of teas, and people on Java could easily enough visit those to try teas, or travel to other islands where tea is produced.  We visited Wonosari plantation near Yogyakarta last December, a former Dutch plantation.  The teas were good, and interesting, but sort of ordinary level, not mass-produced tea in the normal sense but not quite on the normal level of specialty teas.  A silver needle-style white tea was an exception, a very nice tea.

My experiences with specialty / better quality  tea

I first tried a Harendong plantation black tea over a year ago, and that helped spur an ongoing interest in better black teas, a recurring theme in my writing.  The teas I've been trying this year from Toba Wangi are equally amazing, great teas in an interesting variety.  The styles of those teas becomes difficult to describe, more about discussing inputs and tea aspects than pinning down a general type, but they were mostly influenced by Chinese tea styles.

Toba Wangi White Beauty; definitely different

One nice black tea reminds me a little of better versions of Assamica teas from Thailand, not exactly like any Indian, Chinese, or Sri Lankan teas I've tried, different than Vietnamese black teas as well, but maybe closer to those.  A Sinensis based black tea was very similar to a Chinese black tea style, malty, sweet, and soft, with a taste range including dark cherry, wood tones, and yam.


The one Toba Wangi oolong (Wu Mei) reminded me a lot of a Dan Cong (which I compared directly in this review post).  Unlike the other Dan Cong examples I've tried there was no characteristic astringency, so I mean it was similar in the sense of the sweet and intense floral flavor profile and general effect.  Astringency is not always a bad thing, of course, in the right amount and presented the right way, and a mild version is a nice compliment to the fruitiness of some Dan Cong teas.  The Wu Mei also works well for being a smooth, mild tea, and if someone's preference is to brew their tea a little stronger it still works really well across different brewed strengths.  Their White Beauty white tea is even more unique, not like anything I've tried, sweet and subtle with a nice fruit element.  I think I would have been even more impressed by it if the Wu Mei oolong hadn't set the bar so high, and didn't match my own personal type preferences so well.

It's my understanding that processing has as much influence as the other factors in the final result, so it's not surprising that more style consistency doesn't emerge, that the teas can come across as novel interpretations of Chinese teas.  To clarify that, I mean that Thai lighter oolongs made from Jin Xuan or Ruan Zhi or Si Ji Chun are consistent in style as much because of drawing on consistent processing methods inherited from Taiwan as from growing in similar conditions.

Indonesian producers are still exploring stylistic inputs, as Galung of Toba Wangi said still integrating practices and knowledge from other places, in addition to growing new types of tea plants.  For example, one of the owners of the Harendong plantation mentioned developing a tea roasted in a certain way to mimic some of the flavor elements typically found in coffee (maybe somewhere in between a Dong Ding style and dark-roasted TKY?).

This is even more interesting in light of the long Dutch tea history.   This type of openness to experimentation and related positive results makes it an interesting time to try Indonesian teas.

Toba Wangi (Indonesian) gold needle black and green needle teas

These two teas from Toba Wangi (an Indonesian tea producer) are the last to review from them, and more amazing stuff.  They're not really so connected that review in a combined post adds much, but that's also part of trying to write shorter reviews, to squeeze them down to a manageable summary.  There are common threads in all these teas, just exhibited in vastly different ways in the different styles, and some of that should come across in these descriptions.  Getting right to it then.

Gold Needle black tea

This tea reminds me of lots of better examples of Chinese black teas.  The taste is complex, not just related to there being layers of flavors to list out, but with a nice overall effect of lots of aspects coming together.  It's just one more example of why black teas are one of my favorite types, with a lot more range and complexity to them than they seem to get credit for.

Basic flavors:  dark cherry, malt, earthy tones, towards dark woods or leather.  Under those there is a mineral aspect that integrates well with the rest, not one that's easy to describe, probably related to the mineral rich volcanic soil the plants grew in.  There is another sweet fruit element that really ties back to Chinese black teas I've tried, maybe closest to yam, and a hint of cinnamon as well.  Lots going on with this tea!

To me such teas work really well or aren't so great based on the balance, how the sweetness and astringency play out, how the different flavors come together,  how clean the effect is.  This tea is soft and clean tasting, (using a var. Sinensis, Si Ji Chun / Four Seasons, I think it is), and it matches that general profile type, as much as the unprocessed plant type input relates to one.  One other favorite, a Thai Jin Xuan based black tea, had a little more of floral sweetness and fruit, but this tea compares really favorably to any other black tea I've tried. Surely part of that is my own preference for this particular style, not just about black teas but related to this type of version.


There is something going on with this tea that's hard to describe, a unique feel that overlaps with a taste range, sort of common with Jin Jun Mei and better than average unsmoked Lapsang Souchong I've been drinking lately (with a comparison post on those here, and more struggling to pin down the most subtle aspects).  There's a bit of flavor aspect range in common, but also feel, a type of dryness.
  

For me at least, when I first tried better Jin Jun Mei I sort of liked it, then that distinctive profile later really clicked and I really craved it. Related to the Lapsang Souchong that dark earth, mineral, and malt is common, with other flavors and the feel varying.  That tea works really well when brewed to a lighter balance point, somehow really making perfect sense at one level.  This Gold Needle black tea seems relatively flexible, working well at at a broad range of different strengths, but there probably is an ideal balance point that careful brewing would identify.  That would differ for different people, so it's nice the tea works well across a range or brewed strengths like that.


I've been drinking one other Toba Wangi black tea lately, an Assamica tea type, and it's interesting noting differences in them.  They have a lot in common, but this tea comes across as less earthy, and slightly different in terms of astringency, both with quite different flavor profiles.  Both are softer black teas, so this element gives them a full feel, nothing like "bitterness," which of course is really a flavor, not an accurate description of astringency, which relates to feel.  I really love Sinensis based black teas--var. Sinensis, of course--but I could imagine someone with different natural preferences going the other way, or I guess not even liking black teas so much.  But one would have to try better versions like this one to really know, since this is worlds away from Lipton.

Green tea needle leaves

The dry leaves look unusual, long and twisted, but that is sort of Galung's signature style for tea processing.  Needle is in both names, and all the teas look a bit like Dan Cong to me, maybe this one more than most.  Per Galung his tea making style draws on various influences but more from Wuyishan versions instead (with more about that in an interview with him here).  The dry tea smell is earthy, floral, and vegetal and rich, lots going on with this tea.

The first taste confirms it's a green tea, but a good bit different than any green tea I've ever tried.  It's quite rich in feel, with a good bit of depth, too much going on to take in withing just a few sips.  It's just what I expected from them.  I'll start with a list of tastes, or just start there,  since such an approach wouldn't do description justice.

A sweetness stands out, a taste similar to fruit, probably closer to orchid range, which carries over and changes form from similar elements in the Wu Mei oolong and White Beauty.  It's a little like the bubble gum flavor in those classic pink cube-presented brands.  It's better than that, cleaner and more complex,  but that gives a range.  Or maybe just saying the honey orchid, similar to one Dan Cong aspect, already covers that more accurately.

This is really an example where a tea tastes exactly like one thing, but it's easy to not place it at first, since it's not a common aspect:  toasted coconut.  I tried a flavored tea from the Monsoon tea shop once (in Chiang Mai, Thailand) that was quite similar,  but in this case that flavor is natural.

Beyond that mineral tones stand out more than vegetal, but there are lots of flavors layered together.  The tea is quite soft, with limited astringency, nothing towards bitterness.  I've been drinking a little Taiwanese oolong lately and this tea gives up some fullness of feel compared to that style, but it's not thin.  It actually compares favorably related to that "feel" aspect when compared the last Dan Cong I tried (which I didn't write about).

Green teas are not my favorite but this one bypasses any reservations I have over some of the typical aspects, the grassiness and such.  In a sense it fulfills the potential a Wonosari plantation tea had but didn't fully exemplify,  drawing out some comparable flavors (mineral tones and sweetness, apparently regionally related) without the flaws (eg.  not as clean in effect, a bit softer).  Brewed a little stronger the body picks up more and astringency is experienced as a slight roughness, but the general impression is that the tea is easy to  brew and doesn't require special preparation to offset anything.  One shouldn't brew it too strong, and of course it's a given to use well below boiling point water for all green teas, but that's it.

The only negative one might experience is that it's still a green  tea, so a preference against the type, but as with their other teas it doesn't work to pigeonhole it as a characteristic type.  Other green teas can show that sweetness, or express a floral range, and complexity,  and avoid astringency,  but I've never tried one that accomplishes all that in a similar way, and the character is distinctly Indonesian.  To me it even shows some oolong character related to the way some of those aspects come across, it's just that that fresh "greenness" shows it to be a green tea.

Both are awesome teas, better than just good examples of standard black and green types, distinctive and unique.

Trident Booksellers Long Feng Xia, compared to two other oolongs

I recently tried the last tea sent by Trident Booksellers (surely a decent place to try a cup of tea in Boulder, Colorado) as an extension of discussing teas with their knowledgeable tea procurer, Peter.

This Long Feng Xia lightly oxidized Taiwanese oolong was great, a very nice example of the type, and really of Taiwanese oolongs in general.  I'm too new to tea to place it in relation to other Long Feng Xia oolongs, since I'm only three years into making an obsession of tea, so to help place it I'll mention a couple of other teas that I've recently tried, Thai and Chinese oolongs.  The styles aren't so similar, with the point being to identify the variances through comparison.

Long Feng Xia review

The tea is lightly oxidized, as it was described (winter 2015 top-grade light oolong). The first taste relates to a normal lighter oolong profile, with a couple of exceptional characteristics.  The basic tastes are mineral and floral with a bit of vegetal scope, complex with different elements that integrate well together.  There is a notable fullness to the feel of the tea and a nice sweetness.  That mineral element is a bit hard to place, maybe in between granite and slate.  There's just a bit of butter, different than the expression of butter in a Jin Xuan, which can be stronger.

The floral element is more subtle and integrated than those sometimes come across.  I'm not so great with floral scent memory but the range might be lotus, sweet and rich, a little subdued but a nice complement to the other flavors.  It's hard to fully appreciate but there are no negative flavor aspects, no apparent flaws in the tea, and it all really balances and works.

A green vegetal flavor element gives the flavor range a fullness that reminds me of a Japanese green tea, just at a much lower level, the umami aspect.  It's not a principle component of the tea flavor or experience profile, but that bit of extra range stands out when tasting it initially.  After just a few sips it seems familiar and not so noticeable.  That component joins with the mineral tones in this tea, and doesn't extend to accompany seaweed or other vegetal aspects as might be associated with it in Japanese green teas.

Is that general point clear?  Umami is a savory taste, picked up by the tongue, overlapping quite a bit with MSG (it's an effect from glutamates; MSG is mono-sodium glutamate, one of those).  I wrote a lot more on that in reviewing a Japanese Gyokuro green tea (from Trident, as it worked out) in an earlier post.  Other vegetal flavors can seem to pair up with it, since seaweed and Japanese teas can express a common range related to umami and also other separate vegetal taste elements, more like spinach, but really most like seaweed (which of course is circular, saying that seaweed tastes like seaweed).

Brewed a little stronger the vegetal elements really stand out, and the flavor shifts a little towards sweet corn, towards a typical Tie Kuan Yin range.  Of course there is no astringency in the sense of other tea types, just a bit to give it a full feel and a hint of dryness.  After some infusions the taste gets richer yet and softer, with the fullness remaining, and after many more some of the aspects fade while the mineral element stays strong.

Compared to two other lightly oxidized oolongs

I've been trying to get in the habit of writing simpler, more basic reviews, and that would have been one place to leave off.  But it sounded a little to me like I was describing a standard high-mountain lightly oxidized Taiwanese oolong, without the full effect of how such a tea really comes across.  I've been drinking a couple of other lighter oolongs that will help place everything that goes right in setting up that standard experience, which really only typical in better examples, so maybe atypical.  These other teas just happen to be from Thailand and China, so not exactly comparing apples to apples, but the point is more about traits that come up, that compare or contrast.


I picked up a Thai Jin Xuan in passing very recently, the kind of thing I usually try not to do, since without proper version screening that tends to lead to an ordinary tea experience.  But I was at a local Chinese elementary school where we might send my daughter for pre-school, and they had a small Chinese cultural center or sorts, and I couldn't resist.  My wife reminded me that I tried the tea before (my son did a Chinese-theme summer camp there awhile back) and said it was so-so, and indeed it is.


It's typical for Thai Jin Xuan to have a bright, sweet, floral nature, with a distinctive buttery flavor aspect.  Better examples have nice clean flavors, and some degree of fullness, and worse examples just taste off.  This is in the middle, with an unusual wood-tone aspect dominating the flavor profile.  There isn't so much butter to it but under that there is a nice honey sweetness, which shows up better in smelling the empty cup than it does in tasting the tea.

Jin Xuan, but the label is in Thai and Chinese

It has a floral element, a bit soft and subdued, maybe along the lines of a light lavender, a bit less "bright" a floral component than many lightly oxidized oolongs exhibit.  It's not bad but it doesn't really fully come together; it doesn't click.  To use this as comparison for the Long Feng Xia, it's hard to fully appreciate that clean presentation of complex, positive taste aspects that does balance well, but easy to notice the lack of all that.


I've recently been drinking Tie Kuan Yin that Tea Village provided, one of the nicest vendors in Thailand, along with teas I ordered.  Tie Kuan Yin could get some negative exposure for showing up as a commonly available oolong, for turning up in grocery stores, but it comes in a range of different quality levels.  It's a plant type grown in Taiwan, China, and Thailand, maybe the most commonly seen prepared in a lighter style (although here Jin Xuan is more common).   This version is from the Anxi area in China, the origin best known for this tea type. The best examples have an amazing floral sweetness that words couldn't really do justice to, in bright tones like orchid.  Mid-range versions can also be very nice, as this one was.

nice and bright green

This version stood out for being very clean and bright, and relatively sweet.  The primary taste was closer to sweet corn, mixed with a vegetal element like fresh sugar snap peas or fresh green beans.  That doesn't sound as nice as it comes across, like nice fresh versions, nothing like frozen vegetables.  That clean, bright effect is really what the Jin Xuan was missing, relating to the effect and general quality level that such teas should have.  The other Taiwanese oolong was really on the next level, different in character, but also adding complexity, structure, full feel, and more subtle taste components to it, in addition to a lot of mineral range.


I guess to some extent this maps back onto a warning about sourcing, something along the lines of "you get what you pay for." Or maybe it's just that you can only trust sources to the extent that they actually try to find and sell you better teas.  Some random stall in a traditional market here is a gamble (not where I bought this Jin Xuan, but that has come up, with mixed results), with more consistency in shops you already know.  Finding rare, better teas doesn't really work well by chance, unless you happen to be in the place those are made, and even then maybe not.  Tea quality doesn't necessarily map directly back to cost but tea producers and vendors tend to sell teas for going market rates.  That Tie Kuan Yin was nice, for what it was, but I'd have rather paid twice as much for the Jin Xuan to get a better tea.