Van Vreeswijk was the Dutch colonial entrepreneur who, around 1924, took over the management of the Atjehsche Oliefabriek at Tapa Toean on the Westkust van Atjeh after a period of standstill, and who in his correspondence with the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum at Amsterdam in the summer of 1924 made the discovery of the Bakongan leaf — the discovery that the patchouli leaf of Bakongan, grown on the sand-and-swamp conjunction of the Bakongan coastal strip and dried with the care the Bakongan planters had begun to devote to it, was the finest patchouli-leaf of Atjeh and yielded an oil equal in quality to the best Singapore-Penang product. The discovery is the culminating episode of the Atjeh patchouli experiments of 1921-1925 and is preserved in *Bericht* No. 21 of the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum (April 1925).
The Take-Over of the Atjehsche Oliefabriek
The Atjehsche Oliefabriek at Tapa Toean — the small factory at which the indigenous distillation of patchouli oil in Atjeh had begun in 1921 under the joint auspices of the Gewestelijk Bestuur van Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden and the Afdeeling Nijverheid at Buitenzorg — had fallen into a period of standstill by 1923. The first distillations had produced oil of mediocre quality, the European market had not responded favourably, and the factory had stopped work.
In 1924 — the precise date is not recorded in the surviving correspondence — the factory was taken over by Van Vreeswijk, described in the Bericht as “een Europeaan, aldaar woonachtig” — a European resident there. Van Vreeswijk was thus not a visiting expert from Buitenzorg or Amsterdam but a resident of Tapa Toean: a colonial entrepreneur who had settled in the sub-division and who was prepared to take on the financial risk of restarting the distillery.
The 16 August 1924 Letter — The Discovery
The Handelsmuseum had written to Van Vreeswijk at the end of June 1924 asking for a description of the treatment of the patchouli leaf from picking to shipping, since “de handboeken weinig bijzonderheden vermelden over de droging van het nilam-blad” — the handbooks give few particulars on the drying of the nilam (patchouli) leaf. Van Vreeswijk’s reply of 16 August 1924 gave the Handelsmuseum, in his own words, “een nieuw licht opgaan over de patchouly-kwestie” — a new light on the patchouli question.
The Drying Process
Van Vreeswijk described the standard drying process:
“In doorsnee zal ‘t blad aan de steel direkt gedroogd worden in de volle zon, welk proces 1 à 2 dagen duurt. Daarna worden de groote stengels verwijderd en ‘t blad komt nog een weinig soepel op de markt.” — On average the leaf is dried at the stem directly in the full sun, a process that takes 1 to 2 days. Then the large stems are removed and the leaf comes to market still a little supple.
The Ranking of the Atjeh Patchouli Districts
Van Vreeswijk then gave his decisive judgement: “De kwaliteit is geheel afhankelijk van de plaats van herkomst” — The quality is wholly dependent on the place of origin. He then ranked the three principal Atjeh patchouli districts:
Labohan-Hadji — the least valuable
The leaf from Labohan-Hadji — modern Labuhan Hajji — was the least valuable. “Het komt zeer vuil op de markt” (it comes very dirty to market), and was often weighted with sea-water to increase its weight at sale. Market price: ƒ5 to ƒ6 per pikol; after cleaning, only 50% of the bale remained.
Loboang Koang — better
The leaf from Loboang Koang — a locality “vlak bij Tapa-Toean” (right by Tapa Toean) — was better cared for and gave a better oil yield. Van Vreeswijk had been able to buy freshly picked leaf here, dry it himself, and send one baal of it to the Handelsmuseum.
Bakongan — the best
The leaf from Bakongan was the best. Van Vreeswijk had just returned from a trip to Bakongan, where he found “verreweg de meeste zorg door de Inlanders eraan besteed” — by far the most care devoted to it by the natives. The leaf “komt biina geheel gezuiverd aan de markt” (comes almost wholly cleaned to market).
Within the last year the Bakonga planters had begun to plant on a strip of land along the coast, bounded on the other side by swamp-land. The conjunction of sand and swamp “schijnt de plant zeer ten goede te komen” (seems to agree very well with the plant). The new planting had already been picked twice, and a third picking would follow within the year. “De geur van het gedroogde blad was veel sterker dan dat uit eenig andere streek in Atjeh” — the odour of the dried leaf was much stronger than from any other region in Atjeh. Market price: ƒ14 per pikol — more than double the Labohan-Hadji price.
Van Vreeswijk had therefore made up the second shipment — sent end of October 1924 — from Bakongan leaf.
The Bakongan Triumph
The Bakongan leaf, when distilled by the European houses over the winter of 1924-1925, produced oil that was uniformly judged to be of equal quality to the best Singapore-Penang product. Schimmel & Co. of Miltitz reported “kräftiger Patchouligeruch” (strong patchouli odour) and concluded that the Bakongan leaf was “den Singapore-Patchouliblättern als gleichwertig zu erachten” — to be considered equivalent to the Singapore patchouli leaves. The Dutch factory reported that the oil “ruikt heel goed en komt ons inziens in reuk overeen met goede kwaliteit Penang-olie” — smells very good and corresponds in odour to good-quality Penang oil.
The Handelsmuseum’s conclusion, in its letter to Buitenzorg of December 1924, was the obituary of the Singapore-Penang monopoly on prime patchouli: “prima blad, prima olie; op de winning van het goede blad komt het aan! en niet op de nabehandeling te Penang of Singapore.” — Prime leaf, prime oil; it is the winning of the good leaf that matters, and not the after-treatment at Penang or Singapore.
The Commercial Connexions
In the closing pages of the 1925 Bericht the Handelsmuseum reports that the Atjehsche Oliefabriek — that is, Van Vreeswijk’s factory — was seeking commercial connexions in the Netherlands, and the Handelsmuseum considered it unlikely to be disappointed. Van Vreeswijk had also given the Handelsmuseum the information that, following a conversation with the American vice-consul at Medan in the previous month, a report on the patchouli-culture of Atjeh would shortly appear in the United States. This last remark suggests that Van Vreeswijk, beyond his work as a factory manager, was active in the promotion of the Atjeh patchouli industry to a wider international audience.
Significance
Van Vreeswijk is significant for the encyclopedia of Aceh history as the man whose single letter of 16 August 1924 transformed the Atjeh patchouli-oil industry from a struggling experimental programme into a successful commercial enterprise. His ranking of the Atjeh patchouli districts — Labohan-Hadji the least valuable, Loboang Koang the middling, Bakongan the best — has been the basis of the Atjeh patchouli economy ever since. He exemplifies the type of the colonial resident-entrepreneur — the European who settled in a sub-division of the Indies and who, by his personal initiative and his attention to local conditions, was able to make discoveries and establish enterprises that no distant official could have made or established.
See Also
- Atjeh patchouli experiments (1921-1925)
- Over patchouly-olie en patchouly-blad van Atjeh (1925)
- Patchouli-olie industry in Atjeh
- Atjehsche Oliefabriek
- Tapa Toean
- Bakongan
- Loboang Koang
- Laboh Hadji
- E. de Kruyff
- Afdeeling Handelsmuseum
- Schimmel & Co.
- Buitenzorg
- Medan
- Singapore
- Penang
- 1924
- 1925
Source
Over patchouly-olie en patchouly-blad van Atjeh (Noord-Sumatra). Berichten van de Afdeeling Handelsmuseum van de Kon. Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut, No. 21. Overgedrukt uit De Indische Mercuur van 8 en 15 Mei 1925. Amsterdam: Druk De Bussy. OCR-filename: 20260801_233856_DLP-153-Over_patchouly_olie_en_patchouly_blad_van_Atjeh_Noord_Sumatra_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 17-21.