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Outlier Tea in Search of a Place
Your cup of tea: Tayu green tea brewed in the Chinese wayNutty, somewhat bitter with an overburnt aroma
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Your cup of tea: Tayu green tea brewed in the Chinese way
Nutty, somewhat bitter with an overburnt aroma. That's the taste of Tayu green tea ' also known as Jebus tea or nampong cha in Chinese.
The aroma filled the air when the tea was brewed by a visiting administrator of the Jakarta-based Tea Lovers Community in Tayu ' a hamlet in Ketap village where the tea is produced, in Jebus district in West Bangka regency.
They were drawn there for three reasons.
At an altitude of 15 to 20 meters above sea level, with slope percentages ranging from 3 to 8, Tayu is arguably home to the country's only lowland tea estates ' an outlier because most tea plants in the country are grown in the highlands.
The estates are family or household-owned and operated smallholdings, which is also an outlier because the other tea estates in the country are normally owned and run by state plantation companies (PTPN), private corporations or private individuals.
Third, head of West Bangka regency's Agriculture, Plantation and Animal Husbandry Service, Azmal Az, sees the smallholdings as a regency asset that merits the creation of a line item in its budget ' not only for development and promotion purposes but also for the obtainment of geographical indication (GI), a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin.
Which, again, is an outlier because the tea estates are, for the most part, situated on state-owned production forests which render them ' according to Minister of Forestry Decree No. 798/2012 that governs changes of designation and function of provincial forest areas ' ineligible for assistance unless they are relocated to areas designated for other uses.
So, for now, the local plantation authorities are focusing on marketing Tayu tea which they regard as an icon of both Tayu and Jebus. They sought advice and assisance from the visiting guests as one of them is the Head of the Promotion Division of the Indonesian Tea Board.
Offered at the source at Rp 5,000 per box of two 50 gram aluminum foil packets and or at Rp 300,000 per kg in a simple plastic sack, mostly through a Bangka Chinese network, the tea is considered expensive and difficult to obtain.
In contrast to most of the tea produced in the country, which come from broad-leaf Camellia sinensis var assamica plants, this lowland tea comes from the small-leafed Camellia sinensis var sinensis plant known for its hardiness and ability to produce some of the finest teas on earth.
Moreover, the plants are of 60 to 100 years of age, according to both Azmal Az and Erwin Malik, the regency field officer responsible for cultivation.
Rather uncared for, growing slowly in full sunshine, these old trees must have, as plant physiology studies have shown, high production of secondary metabolites responsible for more intense flavor, and in some cases, more complex and subtle flavors, which young plants do not generally produce.
While grown in Indonesia, the tea is, however, essentially Chinese as it is produced by Chinese Indonesians using a traditional wok-roasting method passed down to them by their Chinese ancestors.
Having returned to Jakarta, I took a sample of the tea to Chinese tea expert Suwarni Widjaja. She brewed the leaves rapidly and lightly with boiling water, not at the 70 to 80 degree Celsius commonly prescribed for green tea. Suwarni explained that this was unnecessary as the tea leaves came from old trees grown in tropical lowland areas.
The result was surprising. The captivating aroma of roasted seasoned seaweed reflected in a savory, mineral liquor reminiscent of boiled edamame.
An aroma of roasted corn came out instead of burnt flavors. There was no astringency and the after taste was slightly salty. After the third steeping, the flavors started to fade away gracefully.
If effort is made to make the tea organic, diversify it, promote it as artisanal exotic product linked to the history of the island's Chinese migrants and tin mining, and make the estates tourism-friendly, the tea may soon become a sought-after experience.
' Arif Suryobuwono
