Jakarta (Indonesia Window) - Tea plantations found in West Java, Central Java and North Sumatra accounted for 132,000 metric tons of Indonesian tea production in 2015.

Even though Indonesia occupies the seventh position as a world tea producer, the country has yet to popularize drinking tea as a popular culture among the people and thus the National Tea Association (ATI) and PT Perkebunan Nasional (PT PN)   organized the first National Tea Competition in Bandung, West Java, on Friday (Oct 18).

According to the Director of PTPN, Wahyu, many Indonesian people have yet to appreciate drinking of tea whose quality is still below those of other countries that have competitive prices because the branding of Indonesian tea products is not yet strong.

Culture

ATI Chairman Dede Kusdiman said winners of the national tea competition in Bandung would participate in similar events in Korea and other world-class competitions.

In addition, the competition is expected to popularize the culture of drinking tea in the country, such as the Nyanut culture in Garut and drinking coffee by people in Ciamis, West Java, who are used to sipping hot tea with side dishes of fried bananas and fried cassava.

One of the tea products from Taiwan, Teh63, which participated in the National Tea Competition introduced a culture of drinking tea known as Gong Fu Tea or Kung fu Cha.

If drinking tea becomes a culture in the community, as found in China and Japan, it is expected that tea production in the country will increase thereby helping the welfare of tea farmers and pickers besides opening more jobs in the tea industry sector.

Efforts to popularize drinking tea in the homeland are expected to be more successful with the election of the Deputy Regent of Bandung, Hengky Kurniawan, as the ambassador of Indonesian tea.

Reporting by Indonesia Window