The Dutch brought Chinese, Indian and Javanese workers to the tea plantation they established in Simalungun, North Sumatra.

The past was filled with a glorious story about a vast tea plantation on the southeastern slope of Mount Wilis in East Java. But then, times changed and it came to an end.

In the end, they will all grow old. One by one, they will depart this life, reaching the true finish line. No new generation has come to replace them either. Twilight is heralding for the tea pickers of Nusantara.

Tea producers have begun to realize the importance of narratives to promote teh Nusantara (tea of the archipelago) and are trying to identify old practices to be used as reference points for such narratives.

Nights are colder during the dry season in the highlands. In Gambung, we were kept warm by the hearth and the hospitality of tea pickers. We also discovered that the state of Gambung tea was rocky.

The Sari Oneng Parakan Salak gamelan orchestra accompanied the sale of tea to Europe at the end of the 19th century. The Dutch brought along gamelan as a means of building a narrative about the sublimity of tea.

Many a hero was born out of chaos. Much the same is true in the tea business. As various issues blight the industry in West Java, tea business people, especially smallholders, are striving to find bright paths.

The area of smallholder tea farms has been shrinking thousands of hectares over the past decade.