Visit to the Tea Factory

Why visit a tea factory?

Always asking why, that 's is an attitude, a reflex of the body, a reaction of the mind, a moment to hold on and to wait. It's an interruption of the stream of consciousness, of the blind process that pushes or drags us somewhere. We don't like to leap in the dark. We are afraid of the dark and the hidden happenings. So, we go to the tea factory not far from Bandung to stop our pondering and watch how it looks like to process tea. The scent of tea reminds us of Proust writing about the madeleine cookies he got from his aunt when he was on holiday.


Tea and cookies, aunts and memories, old times, old factories and old fashioned production processes. However, I think we are not here to meet Proust. No, we arrive at a a big building on  top of a hill. All the slopes around are covered by tea plants, green, civilized bushes, round and friendly branched. There is no wind, no movement. The hillsides are dressed in green, a decorative, light dress of a lady. And the lady rests quietly and satisfied,  elegantly touched by many hands. We walk around the factory building, which produces an immense noise. Yellow, green and red painted trucks stand outside. Workers are smoking cigarettes and talking under a tree and in front of the wall of the factory. Inside, heaps of tea leaves are being transported through huge halls. Hot air is blown through big pipes in order to dry the leaves on the transport band.  A penetrating perfume fills the halls, when the leaves are being dried. The perfume spreads around and  is the messenger of the taste of the final tea product. The scent  shows the way for the already dried, dark leaves. In the next hall men and girls collect the leaves and put them in other pipes and the leaves go on,  are being blown further, pushed through and finally packed in big white massive sacks. A girl climbs iron stairs and checks the open pipes and the stream of hot air, invisible steam under the high roof. She smiles a perfumed smile. Finally, we drink tea in a room with some pictures of the factory on the wall. I think Proust wouldn't have been at ease in this down trodden environment.