Coffee in Jakarta is Flourishing
Despite a chaotic environment, Jakarta’s coffee scene is flourishing. In this article I explore the vast array of INDEPENDANT coffee available in the mega city. Visiting Cafe Batavia, Kopi Es Tak Kie, Jalan Surbaya and more, I explore how young entrepreneurs are introducing coffee’s third wave to Indonesia’s largest city. - Xua
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Ask anyone who lives here, Jakarta is a mess. While that may keep hoards of tourism away, to the seasoned explorer, it can be an inviting challenge.
The frantic capital of Indonesia is a city filled to the brim with the ingredients of science fiction dystopia. Jakarta is bursting at the seams with traffic, pollution, and faltering infrastructure. Somehow, those aren’t its most pressing issues, Jakarta is also sinking into the Java Sea. The capital is in such threat of submersion, that the Indonesian government is pulling the plug and moving all government activities across the sea to Kalimantan.
Older than Singapore and Hong Kong – Jakarta has long been connected to the Western world, centuries longer than many of Asia’s most famous destinations. Until the Meiji Restoration in 1876, foreigners could not step on Japanese soil. The British expansion of Singapore started in 1819 and Hong Kong in 1841. Two centuries earlier, in 1619, the Dutch began their colonial expansion of Java and christened modern day Jakarta as Batavia.
Throughout its construction, the Dutch eschewed all logical city planning, instead focusing on segregating themselves from the indigenous population. This extreme segregation was executed by isolating Dutch colonies through a grid of poorly constructed walls and canals. Separating their community with that of the native peoples by literally “moating” themselves. The walls have long since fallen but the crumbling canals remain, causing headaches for all residents of the city.
The building of Port Batavia allowed the Dutch to expand their spice empire and build the largest trading operation the world had ever seen. It was through Batavia where the Dutch first exported coffee, a crop received in trade from Africa that was then cultivated in Sumatra. Exporting it as “Mocha Java”, this brew gained popularity within the European elite. By 1678, the Dutch had established coffee plantations from Northern Sumatra to East Java.
A Man Using the crumbling old Dutch Canals to travel through Jakarta
After centuries of unregulated urban growth, Jakarta is almost too large to fathom, expanding forever in every direction. Here, luxury skyscrapers neighbor tin shacks and blown out tenement towers. Every block is packed, not an inch spared. In my experience, there is much to love about a messy city. There is a word for human messes this big, omnishambles. he word was coined in a 2009 episode of the BBC political satire In the Thick of It referring to a situation that is shambolic from all possible perspectives. Since then it has been picked up in jingoistic political spheres to describe messes of all kinds. In Jakarta, the people thriving under omnishambles of this scale are a source of incredible and unique human experiences. Their stories imbue a macro-mess with a hypnotizing micro-authenticity.
There is a recently created word for human messes this big, “omnishambleS.”
I’m staying on the 20th floor of a very nice, affordable hotel on the Glodok side of Kota Tua. Glodok is the largest Chinatown in Indonesia and one of the oldest neighborhoods in Jakarta. It is home to my first coffee shop stop, Kopi Es Tak Kie. From there, I plan to walk along the canals to what remains of Old Batavia square before embarking on a tuk-tuk quest through several neighborhoods around the city.
It was in Old Batavia where the decadent heights of the colonial age met cultures from across the world. As trade ships docked with goods, so did their cultures, creating one of Asia’s first truly cosmopolitan cities. From silk dresses to Big Band Jazz, Marxism to Fascism, the world came to Indonesia through Port Batavia.
Walking in Jakarta offers its own unique set of puzzles. Sidewalks here are only called sidewalks because they vaguely resemble a thing you can walk on. Several times I found myself jumping across missing sections of concrete. The concrete that lines the streets seems to be made of single cement tiles, like the panels of an office ceiling. A great percentage of tiles are cracked in half, teetering in place, or missing altogether. Like crossing a river by jumping from rock to rock, it’s a game of chance and eye coordination. One ill-advised hop and your legs may disappear below into the archaic drainage system.
Iced Coffee, Wise & Easy
Jakarta is not considered a traveler’s destination and does not have a legendary coffee scene. There are no bucket list created by die hards about must see Jakarta before you die. Do a little research, however, and you’ll find the diversity of options is staggering. Through bugging friends and deep diving Trip Advisor, I had mapped out a variety of vintage coffee shops, specialty roasters, and word of mouth coffee houses. For three and a half days, I was going to treat Jakarta like it was the most blogged about coffee spot in Asia. I would attempt to hit over a dozen “kedai kopi” from every historic neighborhood.
Jakarta’s “kedai kopi” (the Bahasa term for Coffee House) are a quintessential part of the city’s daily life. Many kedai kopis provide the nighttime social space cocktail bars would in a non-islamic nation. Most offer full menus of food and deserts and are open well past midnight. That’s a lot of service industry hours to keep up with for baristas. Maintaining requires serious effort from everybody involved. Add to that the daunting task of clearing the hundreds of hurdles Jakarta itself presents and it’s clear the folks that run these operations from top to bottom live and breath coffee.
I was up early on day one with a list of 5 neighborhoods and 8 kedai kopis to visit. The first of which was a half mile walk down Glodok to one of Jakarta’s oldest coffee cafes, Kopi Es Tak Kie. This legendary coffee shop, open since 1927, has been passed down for three generations. They open at 6am, I’m here at 8 and its already very busy.
Founded by Chinese immigrant Liong Kwie Tjong, the name Tak Kie comes from the word ‘tak’ : a person who is wise, simple, and candid. Meanwhile, the word ‘kie’ itself means “easy”. Then Kopi is coffee and Es is Ice. So, Iced Coffee Wise & Easy or something like that.
The name has not changed since it was first established and its been 40 years since the menu has changed, what you see is what you get and what you get is iced coffee with condensed milk. Kopi Es Susu. The coffee beans are a house roasted mixture of Robusta and Arabica, darkly roasted, far beyond second crack with beans from Toraja in Sulewesi and Sidikalang in North Sumatra. It’s the sort of old shop where the walls sweat as the day progresses. For 8am, its hot and humid and the place is packed. I’m cooled only by a pair of electric fans that look like they were installed well before World War II.
So much of Jakarta is new construction, usually a glass skyscraper or a cement monstrosity. Very little of pre-independence (1956) architecture was preserved. So when you do enter a building of significant age in Jakarta, the feeling of history is as thick as the air. Even though it was early in the morning, an iced coffee stirred with sweetened condensed milk hit the spot. Because I was in Chinatown, pig was on the menu. My breakfast was a bowl of Nasi Babi – Roasted pork and rice with an egg, Bacon and eggs and coffee 8,500 miles from home.
Was the coffee worthy of its reputation? From the perspective of my trained, admittedly uppity coffee pallet? No. But that is entirely missing the point. Mr. Tjong immigrated here nearly a century ago and built something that lasted. Through two world wars, two foreign occupations, and three entirely different forms of government. The citizens of Jakarta could come to Glodok and get a cup of iced coffee, easy. These are things my pretentious palette could never taste. This cup of joe tasted ancient and dark, it was served with foggy ice cubes in a glass that had seen half a million washes. This was delicious.
Tubruk
It was on a trip to Sulewesi in 2010 when Indonesian coffee first made a real impression on me. Every coffee on that trip was robusta, roasted intensely dark served “tubruk”.
When traveling the Indonesia archipeligo, you are going to receive your coffees “Tubruk”. “Kopi Tubruk,” is a sort of robusta soup served with grounds in the cup, what Grandpa called “cowboy coffee”. After mixing in the desired amount of sugar (gula) and susu (milk) the drinker waits for the grinds to settle at the bottom of the cup before sipping.
Like in Vietnam, the cup of coffee is served along side the food so one can eat as the grinds settle. Bold in every sense, the tubruk experience is decidedly old fashioned and can range from kick ass to nasty.
A decade after my first cups of tubruk, coffee ‘s third wave is flourishing in Indonesia. There are hundreds of high end espresso bars playing all the hits from chemex to cortados. Betawis have an intrepid entrepreneurial spirit that was nourishing the local coffee industry to new heights.
Touring coffee farms around the archipelago for a decade had left me with impression that exporting the beans was the primary focus of Indonesian producers. Farmers are always focused on providing quality beans to be roasted in cafes in other countries. However, this commodified relationship to coffee represented only one sliver of the Indonesian kopi spectrum.
A day in the throws of traffic only to travel a few miles in an endless circle of gridlock and soon I could understand how vital coffee must be here. In Jakarta, coffee is as quintessential to daily life as it is in New York City.
In Jakarta, coffee is as quintessential to daily life as it is in New York City.
Cafe Batavia
My next stop is the only other place in Jakarta that has been slinging coffee longer than Kopi Es Tak Kie. By walking through the rest of Glodok and following an old canal, I find myself at the Old Batavia square, Fatahillah Square. This is one of the only areas where Dutch colonial architecture still stands, one building of which is my second stop, Cafe Batavia.
Cafe Batavia looks over the busy Fatahillah Square and is kitty corner to the history museum. The building, constructed in 1805 by the Dutch as one in a series of high end accommodations designed for the upper echelon of the VOC. The VOC, otherwise known as the Dutch East India Trading Company, was for most of its time in Indonesia, the largest company earth had ever seen.
This elegant colonial building has hosted Kings and Queens, Amans, Sheiks and ambassadors, many whose pictures line the staircase. Once ascended, the staircase gives way to a beautiful old world bar with every conceivable type of alcohol, not an easy feet in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country.
This was the type of place a black and white movie would be shot in. A red carpet band stand, teak table tops, heavily lacquered carved wood everywhere. Dozens of chandeliers casting prismatic reflections of sunlight around the dining room bouncing off the spotless surfaces. Inside, it smells old and expensive like a Connecticut mansion.
Perusing the menu, it echoes the history of Cafe Batavia and the chaos of Jakarta itself: An all day menu of Asian dishes on one page and an all day menu of European dishes on another. Asparagus cream soup and eggs benedict served side by side with salt and pepper squid and nasi campur. Six pages representing everywhere from Hong Kong to Paris as well as an additional page of Indonesian fare.
As fascinating as the menu was, I was still full from my morning nasi babi. Besides, I wasn’t here to eat. I was here for Ginger Coffee.
Eight years ago, on a freezing sunrise hike to the top of the Kelimutu Crater , my body was warmed by a cup of spiced coffee. It was Kopi Jahe, Indonesian ginger coffee. That morning watching the sun rise over the volcanos of Flores, I permanently affixed a radar in my brain whose sole focus was to hunt down every version of this magical concoction of root and bean.
Since then, I’ve sipped hundreds of cups of kopi jahe and even calibrated my own recipe down to the pulp of the ginger juice used. When talking to my Indonesian friends about my obsession, on more than one occasion, I’d been told to go to Cafe Batavia. The Kopi Jahe at Cafe Batavia was to many, the quintessential cup of ginger coffee. I had arrived and soon I would have my storied Kopi Jahe.
Cafe Batavia serves their ginger coffee as a tarik latte in a glass. To “tarik” is to pull the coffee. This is when the coffee, cream, gula jawa (dark sugar) and ginger are poured from one pitcher to another, stretching the distance longer each time. The result is a creamy, frothy brew that is dusted with freshly grated cinnamon and nutmeg.
From the first hit on the tip of my tongue, I could tell I was in for a glorious cup of kopi jahe. The best jahes sting the throat on the way down.
From the first hit on the tip of my tongue, I could tell I was in for a glorious cup of kopi jahe. The best jahes sting the throat on the way down.
The most difficult element when creating a fine ginger coffee is harmony. Whatever preparation is attempted, making sure the coffee or ginger does not over power one or the other is the most challenging aspect of the recipe. If one does not pre-heat the ginger past 180 degrees, the ginger enzymes will cause separation between the cream and coffee. If one does not melt the gula jawa before hand, it will grab the ginger and sink.
By employing “Tarik”, the pulling oxygenates the brew and allows the ginger to act effervescently, bringing forth the bright aromatics of the ginger. The citrus heat hitting the front of the pallet while the darkly roasted robust coffee, smoothly lingers on the back of the pallet. This harmony should only be accentuated by the cream and sugar.
Many if not most of the cups of kopi jahe I’ve experienced in Indonesia is heavy on the sugar, but not refined white sugar, instead Gula Jawa is used. Gula Jawa is ubiquitous in Indonesian cooking, in both sweet and savory fare. It is a tart, very dark coconut palm sugar that comes in thick blocks that can used plain or melted into a molasses like syrup. When employed correctly, it rounds out the extreme flavors of the ginger coffee and coats the sides of tongue. Properly integrating the sugar makes a good cup of kopi jahe capable of pleasing every inch of one’s pallet.
Batavian Cloudburst
I promise myself to come back to Cafe Batavia someday for dinner and show on that red bandstand. Hailing a Bajaj (Tuk Tuk), I noticed a few very dark clouds gathering. I was off to Jalan Surabaya, a famous flea market road next to my next coffee destination.
Within a few blocks we come upon Merdeka square, a city park that enwraps the National Monument. The driver deftly compresses the Bajaj into an ocean of traffic and immediately lays on the horn. I look up and for the first time, get a sense of the enormity of congestion Betawis coexist with.
It’s a wildly chaotic environment with every size and shape of automobile, moto, and bajaj. The tallest vehicles were the city buses, slow moving double decker buses with blown out windows and six paint jobs. People packed inside like cigarettes watching as pedestrians on foot casually pass. Everyone was searching for free space to squish their automobile into. What is designed to be six lanes transforms to ten, mutates into a dozen then abruptly funnels into a single turn lane. Nowhere in site is a tram or monorail, the bus stops are abstractions at best, its a pure and utter mess.
Uber here is unreliable, very popular and so cheap, you’ll think they made a mistake on your first invoice. If a .75 cent Uber rides is too steep or slow, you can opt for a Gojek (a play on the Bahasa word for mopeds- Ojek). Anyone who has backpacked around Southeast Asia knows this is common transport, even for someone my size.
After marinating in some of the world’s finest automobile chaos, it became clear my initial plan to hit five neighborhoods in a day would need serious augmentation. This is a harsh reality of Jakarta, then began another one: Cloudburst.
Initial pouring rains were intense and warm and even though the Bajaj had a roof , we were taking on water. I was getting splashed as an ankle high puddle formed on the floor. This was my first experience with a Batavian Cloudburst, a sudden, violent rainstorm. It would force me to leave Jakarta two days early and remains my central impression of my time there.
How could one survive in this city without coffee?
Jalan Surabaya
The rains had continued with a ten minute stoppage here and there. When the sun found its way through the black clouds, it was oppressingly hot.
The rains had continued with a ten minute stoppage here and there. When the sun found its way through the black clouds, it was oppressingly hot. With my bags in hand I headed up the street to the welcome shade of my next coffee stop.
An an open air hallway ending with an intricately carved turquoise doorway greets customers when entering the impeccably curated Giayanti Coffee Roasters. The relaxed decor of antiqued furniture from the flea market freshly painted in vibrant colors provides the type of maximalist decor people would spend six figures on in the states. Here, the decor feels natural and casual, as if the owners knew the placement of every piece before pulling the first shot of espresso.
Giayanti roasts an exciting blend of seven different beans from across Indonesia. A natural from Bali, a robusta from Sulawesi, arabica from Flores, East and West Java, North and South Sumatra. It’s a shot with an immense level of difficulty that could easily go wrong. The roasters at Giayanti have struck a lovely, silky balance that made for one of the most memorable shots of my life. By implementing specialty coffee technique with coffee grown nearby, Giayanti and other coffee roasters are in a unique position to pull off such a complex shot of espresso.
THE THIRD WAVE LANDS HOME
Giayanti specializes in roasting coffee grown in Indonesian. While that may sound like an obvious business model, until recently, it was not. Coffee in Indonesia has widely been treated as an export commodity. Meaning the best beans, the highest quality crops are always shipped out. This left locals consuming quick and cheap options like sugar stuffed packets of instant coffee and burnt robusta.
While still the case in much of rural Indonesia, third wave coffee has connected with young entrepreneurs in the country’s metro- areas. This had lead to a boom of specialty coffee in Jakarta and beyond. Hundreds of Javanese roasters are sourcing micro-lots from their home country and treating the beans as precious cargo.
No other location in Jakarta takes on that concept as purely as Kopikina. Located 5 long kilometers from Jalan Surabaya, the vintage hole in the wall location that Kopikina occupies sits looking over a busy road of traffic. Inside, the shop owner, Adi, mans his small 3 kilo roaster, roasting micro-lots from around Indonesia. Adi knows all his famers personally. Every few months he sets off around Java in his VW Kombi, collecting 15 Kilo bags of coffee that are impossible to find in the western world.
Coffee is a fickle crop. Because Indonesia is a pacific ocean away coupled with extreme moisture, experimental crops would never make it across seas without loosing quality and experiencing mold issues. Small crops are simply not worth the hassle of shipping a single pallet of bags. The result is most of the interesting and innovative coffee lots from Indonesia never see foreign lands (excluding nearby Australia) and even more rarely do they reach the states.
The result is most of the interesting and innovative coffee lots from Indonesia never see foreign lands and even more rarely do they reach the states
When they do reach the states, Indonesian coffees have a odd reputation to combat. They are difficult to roast. Too Earthy. Too expensive. While almost all third wave roasters give roasting Sumatran beans a shot, almost none of them roast more than one at a time. Starbucks has always been proponents of Sumatran coffee and serve it all around the world. The only thing is that Starbucks burns the living shit out of their coffee.
This isn’t anything new to Sumatran beans. Sumatra has long been the largest coffee exporting island of Indonesia. Many of the largest Dutch plantations, now nationalized or owned by local families, began in the Aceh region of North Sumatra. Sumatran beans are processed in a unique way called “Giling Basah”. A process that utilizes a lot of moisture through two rounds of fermentation and hulling. This process makes the coffee exportable and resistant to mold. Giling Basah has been developed for centuries by farmers who grow coffees at lower elevation amongst extreme rainfall.
Coffees processed in this manner develop a bold, earthy taste that is controversial in third wave coffee circles. Much of the third wave’s reputation has been built on light roast fruity coffees. It was only within the last fifteen years where growers throughout the Indonesian Archipelago began expanding their portfolio and using washed and natural processes. Now coffees of all processes are grown in several islands, East and West Java, Bali, Sulewesi, Timor Leste, Flores and on and on. The more experimental crops from these farms are often very small lots and cannot retain quality through the epic shipping container dance to small coffee roasters in North America.
So it is with great delight that I peruse the wall of coffee filled jars at Kopikina. Here are 30 or so Indonesian grown coffees from small farms around the archipeligo. Coffees such as a black honey process, anaerobic natural process, a very rare red honey. I order a pour over flight of 3 coffees, a round of Matcha pancakes and a chocolate pot de crème.
I talk with Adi about his sourcing trips and what he is currently excited about. The problems he faces are all the same as back home; rising prices, landlords, staffing and the constant turn around of baristas. His passion for roasting shines and I can tell he must love experimenting. “For a long time, I borrowed a roaster and had to pay by the hour, now I have my own and roast anyway I please.”
He was young, maybe 23 or 24, and ambitious. He showed me his sourcing routes on the large map of Indonesia on the wall. He took me through what was to be his next farm expedition around Java, Bali and Lombok. He was hunting for coffees in a way that allowed him first access to the rarest micro-lots as they first became available. I was impressed, “How cool is that?” I thought. This kid was really cool, planning coffee sourcing trips like a punk band plans tours.
All three coffees were distinct and full bodied with wildly dynamic finishes. The red honey felt as if I had bit into a dragon fruit. To this day, it was one if the lightest Indonesian coffees I have ever tried and could match the highest quality Ethiopian bean. It would be a hit at any Blue Bottle in the world, if only it could travel.
In my hand was a cup of some of the rarest coffee in all of Asia. I sat mesmerized, watching waves of dirty freeway water splash the windows. Their matcha pancakes were served with Michelin star presentation. Perfect emerald discs separated by thick green syrup that oozed onto the plate dusted with powdered sugar and toasted oats. Nothing about the unassuming exterior would begin to hint at the gastronomic treasures within its walls.
While in a momentary happy place at Kopikina, the rains poured nonstop. The roads were less and less visible, turning into canals of their own. I put the travel parka on and Adi walked me out as we exchanged contacts.
Amped up on outstanding coffee and green tea pancakes, I flagged down a Tuk Tuk and asked for a ride back to Glodok. I was told “no way, not that far, not this time a day and oh yeah those clouds are here to stay.” Looking up to a black sky in the heat of the afternoon, I asked for a rush hour compromise and we decided on a mall about half way.
Deluge
The megamalls of South East Asia can be crucial aids in situations such as this. Air conditioned edifices with dynamic food courts and wifi, malls can be of great service to the improvising traveler. Of the dozens of malls in Jakarta, this one contained no less than three coffee shops and a movie theater. If I was going to be stuck for several hours, I could mosey around here.
In the mall I ate a giant Bakso, a meatball stuffed with curry along with an unremarkable iced milk coffee. At the second shop was a very bad Kopi Jahe, just a dirty chunk of ginger floating in a cup of burnt robusta. A lot of the mall was closed, I assumed, due to the weather.
The rains never stopped. The roads outside the mall were now a flowing river and for the first time, I wondered if I had actually managed to strand myself.
Traffic inexplicably, terrifyingly doubled.
Traffic inexplicably, terrifyingly doubled. Now the cars and tuk tuks were hydroplaning over grey water. Connecting to the wifi, I ordered an Uber XL and crossed my fingers for a Ford Expedition even though in Asia having a Ford here was unheard of.
I backed myself into the double doors of the mall, my ride not far but moving very very slow. In the distance lightning lit up the view and split the dark clouds. It wasn’t even happy hour and all of Jakarta had been cast into shadows. Eventually, a small sized Nissan SUV pulled up and waved me down. I popped in the back and was greeted by frigid, bone chilling air conditioning and Indonesian pop music.
When the driver tried to turn it to western pop music I stopped him and let it be known I much prefer the Indonesian stuff. He put his finger up and cranked the dial over to a traditional music station and looked at me through the rear view mirror and said “oldies”. “Terima kasih” I said as I settled in for the long ride back through minor flooding and major traffic.
Though I forgot his name, we got to know each other. His english was great anda we talked back and forth about the mess that is Jakarta. He loved it. He drove around and everyday he saw something new or met someone new. He had grown up in rural Sumatra near Pelamban, where everybody knew each other. He didn’t know where Oregon was but he was hoping it was somewhere near Miami. All things considered, it was.
It took over two hours to make it back to my hotel. The Uber ride cost $4.50 and that was with the maxed out tip. I made sure to give him some cash on top and he was confused followed by thrilled. The unceasing rains had formed a moat around the hotel. Dark clouds hung low as I watched the citizens below continue on. To me, this was madness, an introduction to a sort of bedlam that I had no real world experience with. For Batawis, this was just another Thursday.
For Batawis, this was just another Thursday.
Life in cities this size requires adaption to it. However, in Jakarta there was an extra layer of something severe, something that had to do with survival. The people here were happy, they had all been welcoming, curious and kind to me just like every other place in Indonesia. But the Indonesians of Jakarta had this extra thing, this extra bit of resilience that allowed them to shake off the day’s barrage of chaos. Keep kind and carry on.
For months I had been planning a four day coffee tour that would take me to dozens of neighborhoods in one of Asia’s biggest cities. Having accomplished similar tours in Bangkok and Saigon with time left to spare, I now wondered if I would even be able to leave the hotel tomorrow. Could I even make it back to Cafe Batavia on foot tonight?
The answers were resounding Nos. Flipping past the channels I noticed the forecast and finally came to terms with my foiled plans. Flooding would encompass Jakarta for the next week.
With the coordination of the concierge and my friends in Bandung, I was forced to cut my trip trip short. I would wait for a dry spell and haul it to the train station where the train would ascend beyound the clouds to Bandung, a town I loved very much.
Despite severe exhaustion, I couldn’t sleep. Too much. Too much rain, too much traffic, way too much coffee. Looking at my hands, they were raisins, bright white and wrinkled from the day’s deluge.
Eventually, I couldn’t help but nod off, wrecked by a mere 48 hours in Jakarta.
Sometime during the night a massive clap of thunder woke me. I had left the curtains open and even though it was pitch black, the flashes of lighting framed the skyline. I stood up and looked out the window down to the roads below. Bumper to bumper traffic. In the middle of the night. Traffic.
How could one survive in this city without coffee?