Tea (Aceh) (Dutch: thee, Latin: Camellia sinensis) was a highland plantation crop cultivated in the mountainous region near Takèngön in the residency of Atjeh in the early twentieth century, where several large tea plantations (Dutch: thee-ondernemingen) were established on the cool, well-drained slopes of the Gayo uplands after the pacification. The quality of the tea depended on the youthfulness and fineness of the leaves (Dutch: bladgoed); younger, finer leaves produced superior tea. Tea added diversity to the Atjeh export portfolio, complementing the spices, rubber, and coconut products of the lowlands, and — together with arabica coffee — formed the basis of the Gayo highland plantation economy of the colonial period.
The tea plant and the Gayo highlands
The tea plant — Camellia sinensis, Dutch: theestruik — was introduced to the Netherlands Indies in the early nineteenth century and was established as a plantation crop on Java from the 1820s onward, where it became one of the great export staples of the colonial Cultuurstelsel era. Its extension to the Atjeh highlands followed the pacification of the early twentieth century, when the colonial government opened the interior of the residency to European enterprise under the Agrarische Wet 1870 regime of long-lease erfpacht concessions.
The tea plant requires a cool, humid, well-drained environment, and the Gayo plateau around Takèngön — at an altitude of 1,100 to 1,400 metres, with annual rainfall of 1,500 to 2,000 millimetres and a year-round growing season — proved ideal. The volcanic soils of the plateau are deep, slightly acidic, and rich in organic matter, and the diurnal temperature range — warm days and cool nights — favours the slow development of the aromatic compounds that distinguish high-quality tea. By the 1910s several European companies had established tea estates in the district, and the Gayo highlands had become the second great tea-producing region of the Netherlands Indies after the Preanger and Tegal districts of Java.
Plantation characteristics and cultivation
The plantations were situated on the highland slopes, employing local labour and, in some cases, European oversight. The tea bushes were planted in contour rows along the slopes, pruned to a low, flat-topped hedge of about 1 metre in height to facilitate plucking, and weeded and fertilised on a regular cycle. The bushes came into commercial bearing at four to five years of age and continued to yield for fifty years or more under careful management. Shade trees (Dutch: beschermboomen) — typically Albizia or Leucaena — were planted at intervals to protect the bushes from excessive sun and to fix nitrogen in the soil.
Plucking (Dutch: plukken) was performed by Acehnese and Javanese women, who walked the rows and gathered the youngest leaves and buds into the baskets (Dutch: plukmanden) carried on their backs. The quality of the tea depended on the youthfulness and fineness of the leaves: the highest grade — the so-called pekoe or flowery orange pekoe — consisted of the unopened bud and the two youngest leaves, plucked every seven to ten days in the high season; the lower grades included the third and fourth leaves and were plucked at longer intervals. The plucked leaf was carried to the estate factory within hours of harvest to prevent fermentation.
Processing and trade
The freshly plucked leaf was processed through the standard Java method of black-tea manufacture: withering (Dutch: verwelken) in large troughs of moving air for 12 to 18 hours to reduce the moisture content; rolling (Dutch: rollen) in mechanical rollers to break the leaf cells and release the enzymes that drive fermentation; fermenting (Dutch: gisten) in a cool, humid room for 2 to 3 hours to develop the characteristic colour and aroma of black tea; drying (Dutch: drogen) in hot-air dryers (Dutch: droogovens) to stop fermentation and reduce the moisture to about 3 per cent; and finally sorting (Dutch: sorteeren) into the standard trade grades of orange pekoe, pekoe, broken pekoe, and siftings.
The packaged tea was shipped in chests of approximately 50 kilograms via the Gajoweg and the Atjeh tram to the export ports of Belawan and Sabang, and from there to the tea auctions of Amsterdam and London. Gayo tea was generally sold as a “Sumatra” tea and commanded a price comparable to the better Java grades — higher than the cheap Ceylon and Indian teas, lower than the premium Darjeeling. Tea added diversity to the Atjeh export portfolio, complementing the spices, rubber, and coconut products of the lowlands.
Economic role and decline
The Gayo tea trade was a steady but secondary contributor to the Atjeh export economy through the 1910s and 1920s. The depression of the 1930s sharply reduced the world tea price, and the Atjeh estates were forced into retrenchment: some were abandoned, others converted to coffee or vegetable cultivation. The Japanese occupation of 1942 interrupted the European trade entirely, and the surviving Gayo tea estates were nationalised in 1957–1958 and integrated into the Indonesian state plantation corporation. The Gayo highlands nevertheless remain a significant tea-producing region of Indonesia to the present day, and the surviving colonial-era factories are the foundation of the modern Gayo tea trade.
See Also
- Arabica Coffee (Aceh)
- Robusta Coffee (Aceh)
- Rubber Industry in Atjeh
- Gajoland
- Takèngon
- Gajoweg
- Atjehsche Staatsspoorwegen
- Agrarische Wet 1870
- Belawan
- Sabang
- Buitengewesten
- 1910
- 1920
- 1930
Source
DLP-84-Atjeh.pdf, pp. 14-15.