Dreaming of Kertowono’s Revival

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

Workers process tea leaves at the Kertowono plantation in Guci Alit village, Guci Alit district, Lumajang regency, East Java, on Saturday (27/7/2019).

A slow death: That is what has been happening to the nation’s tea plantations over the last two decades. If they really must come to an end, Kertowono will always be remembered as the eastern stronghold of the country’s “green gold” industry, while Sirah Kencong and Wonosari will be recorded as the "goddesses" of production.

At the end of July 2019, Kompas met with three retired employees of Kertowono tea plantation at the residence of the Afdeling (plantation unit) Kamar Tengah head, about 5 kilometers from the Kertowono tea factory in Lumajang regency, East Java. They are Nari, 109, Tambari, 104, and Supikso, 100.

In the living room, the three "veterans" of the tea plantation spoke about how Kertowono was in the past, sharing their nostalgic recollections like grandparents telling bedtime stories to their grandchildren. In addition to Kompas, a number of Kertowono employees were there to listen to their tales.

Nari opened the conversation by explaining that Kertowono plantation was originally an estate that produced quinine bark (from the cinchona tree), cinnamon and coffee. "They were replaced with tea in 1917," said the man, who worked under five successive Dutch foremen.

Kertowono plantation was founded in 1875as a quinine plantation by the NV Ticdeman Van Kerchen Plantation Company (NV TVK). In order to diversify its products, NV TVK started planting tea and set up a nursery in 1910. By 1917, most of the old plantation crops had been replaced with tea, although a few cinchona and coffee trees are still grown today.

During the Japanese military occupation, some tea plants were uprooted and replaced with ramie and corn. After the Japanese occupation, the tea plantation was fully restored and developed until it was nationalized in 1957.

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

Workers go to pick tea leaves at the Kertowono plantation in Guci Alit village, Guci Alit district, Lumajang regency, East Java, on Saturday (27/7/2019). A shortage of young people interested in picking tea for a living is one of the problems of tea plantations throughout the archipelago. Apart from low wages, the young generation also considers picking tea a tiring job when compared to working at a factory.

Supikso, a former foreman, shared his experiences at Kertowono under the Dutch East Indies government. Back then, the harvested young tea leaves were sent down from the Kamar Tengah unit to a black tea processing factory in the lower plains. Sacks of tea shoots were transported using a pulley system that stretched about 4 kilometers.

According to Supikso, the processed tea was then sent to the Sukodono building in Lumajang for storage. Only when a delivery order came in was the tea transported to Surabaya for shipping domestically or overseas.

Of all the stories about Kertowono plantation, those about the plantation\'s heyday were the three centenarians’ favorite. In 1960-1975, for example, many daily wage laborers were promoted to permanent employees. Their salary was adequate. Plus, each employee received a monthly non-cash allowance comprising 7 kg of rice, 2 kg of sugar and 1 liter of kerosene.

Tambari, who was formerly the security chief, said the plantation was very busy then. Employee cars and distribution trucks went back and forth from the plantation. "In the past, there were a lot of trucks and cars here. There were also Mercy [Mercedes-Benz] cars," Tambari recalled brightly.

Tambari, Nari and Supikso gave us a plantation tour in a time machine that afternoon. The three took us back to the golden days of Kertowono. However, they also spoke to us about two grave issues: the present-day hardships and a dream to revive the national tea plantations.

For the last two decades or so, Kertowono plantation has suffered just as much as any tea plantation in Indonesia, as is evident in a variety of statistical indicators that have been plummeting.

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

Workers process tea leaves at the Kertowono plantation in Guci Alit village, Guci Alit district, Lumajang regency, East Java, on Saturday (27/7/2019).

For example, the Kertowono tea factory received 30 tons of fresh shoots per day in 1985, but from 2000 to the present, it has been receiving a mere 5 tons of fresh shoots per day at most.

Kertowono plantation manager Yongki Artha Wijaya said on 23 Feb. 2020 that maintaining Kertowono plantation was worth fighting for, because as the largest tea plantation in East Java, Kertowono added value to companies and plantation workers. "The challenge now is to be wise in responding to changes. These changes range from the industry, the production system, the market system and to social conditions. Change or die," said Yongki.

Half-hearted

Kertowono is one of several plantations in East Java that are managed by state-owned plantation company PTPN XII. The other plantations under PTPN XII management are the Mount Gambir plantation in Jember, the Wonosari plantation in Malang and the Bantaran plantation in Blitar. These plantations cover a total of 2,893 hectares and produced 5,596 tons of dried tea in 2017.

Together with private and community plantations, East Java has an aggregate 3,997 ha of tea plantations that produced 6,898 tons of dried tea in 2017, or 6 percent of national production. This performance places East Java as the 5th largest tea producer out of 10 tea-producing provinces in the country.

Therefore, PTPN XII was focusing on improving quality, from plantation maintenance to factory processing. This was not easy to do with a limited budget.

PTPN XII operations director Anis Febriantomo said on 25 July 2019 that the plantation area the company managed was relatively small, so the production volume was also small. Therefore, PTPN XII was focusing on improving quality, from plantation maintenance to factory processing. This was not easy to do with a limited budget.

However, Anis had a criticism regarding marketing and sales operations. The state-owned plantation company (PTPN) has an internal provision that PT Kharisma Marketing Bersama Nusantara (KPBN) manages marketing and sales of all its products.

The joint venture between the two state-owned enterprises (SOEs) was originally formed so that neither overtook the other, and to ensure that they adhered to the same pricing standards. The model also aimed to encourage the SOEs to focus on production and quality.

Over the years, however, centralized marketing and sales had proved that the model did not offer a good selling price for plantation companies, a view that is generally held by many employees and officials at PTPNs across Java.

Traces of ‘Diva’

In line with its focus on improving quality, PTPN XII has a strong asset: the crush, tear, curl (CTC) tea that is produced from the Sirah Kencong unit and the D1 black tea from the Wonosari plantation. The two products are known as "divas" at tea auctions, and their prices once soared to over US$3 per kg.

Bantaran executive assistant Bramantya Admaja said the plantation hoped that the PF-1 type of CTC tea from the Sirah Kencong unit would make a comeback as a "market diva". The management was striving to rise above its various limitations.

If Sirah Kencong has the PF-1 CTC tea, the Wonosari plantation in Malang has its own “diva”. The tea plantation in the foothills of Mount Arjuno is known as the top producer of black dust 1 (D1) tea. The plantation is continuing its efforts to maintain quality on hopes that the price of Wonosari’s D1 tea would continue to creep upwards.

Moreover, no government incentives were forthcoming for regenerating and developing the national tea industry.

Indonesian Tea Council chairman Rachmad Gunadi said that the problem with national tea plantations was inefficiency. Costs continued to soar every year while the gap was widening with the commodity’s price, which remained low. Moreover, no government incentives were forthcoming for regenerating and developing the national tea industry.

"The government should be able to facilitate this. Right now, the government is not playing a role. Instead, it has issued many regulations that curb growth,” said Gunadi. “Take Vietnam, for example. The selling price of [Vietnamese] tea at Jakarta’s Tanjung Priok Port is half the price of Indonesian tea. How come? It means that there is an incentive from the [Vietnamese] government."

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

A female worker carries processed tea leaves at the Kertowono plantation in Guci Alit village, Guci Alit district, Lumajang regency, East Java, on Saturday (27/7/2019).

Amid the complexity of the issue, Gunadi remained optimistic that the national tea industry would rise again, because it still had good potential and resources, and a solid market. "The demand for tea continues to grow. Only the [customer] preferences have changed. If we want to revive the national tea industry, a national strategy is crucial. It\'s time to sit down together and integrate [the industry] from the upstream to the downstream," he said.

No tea plantation can deny that the industry is dying a slow death. Even so, Kertowono plantation wants to be remembered as more than just the bastion of tea in the east. Likewise, neither Sirah Kencong nor Wonosari want to go down in history as the plantations that once produced the "divas" of tea.

Nothing lasts forever. The seasons are always changing. Even romance can die. Nevertheless, tea buds were still emerging this morning amid the green expanses of Kertowono, Sirah Kencong and Wonosari.