All about coffeeUkers, William H. (William Harrison)
History
All about coffee
Ukers, William H. (William Harrison)
Coffee; Coffee Industry; Drinking customs
The manager of this estate has had full control for twenty years
and knows the "adat" (tribal customs) of his people and the
individual peculiarities of the leaders. This estate has been
described as having one of the most perfect estate organizations in
Java. It consists of two divisions of 3,449 bouws (about 6,048
acres in all), of which 2,500 bouws are in rubber and coffee and
550 in sisal; the remainder includes rice fields, timber,
nurseries, bamboo, teak, pastures, villages, roads, canals, etc.
The foreign staff is under the supervision of a general manager,
and consists of the following personnel: A chief garden assistant
of section 1, who has under him four section assistants and a
native staff; a chief garden assistant of section 2, who has under
him three section assistants, an apprentice assistant, and a native
staff; a chief factory assistant, who has under him an assistant
machinist, an apprentice assistant, and a native staff; and,
finally, a bookkeeper. The term "garden" means the area under
cultivation.
The bookkeeper, a man of mixed blood, handles all the general
accounting, accumulating the reports sent in by the various
assistants. The two chief garden assistants are responsible to the
manager for all work outside the factory except the construction of
new buildings, which is in charge of the chief factory assistant.
The two divisions of the estate are subdivided into seven
agricultural sections, each section being in full charge of an
assistant. A section may include coffee, rubber, sisal, teak,
bamboo, a coagulation station and nurseries. The assistant's duties
include the supervision of road building and repairs, building
repairs, transportation, paying the labor, and the supervision of
section accounts.
[Illustration: OPEN-AIR DRYING GROUNDS ON A WEST JAVA ESTATE
The beans are being turned by native Sudanese men and women]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A MODERN COFFEE FACTORY IN EAST JAVA
Showing pulping machinery and fermentation tanks]
[Illustration: PREPARING JAVA COFFEE FOR THE MARKET]
The factory includes a water-power plant delivering, through an
American water wheel and by cable, 250 horse-power to the main
shafting, an auxiliary steam plant of 150 horse-power as a reserve,
a rubber mill, a coffee mill, three sisal-stripping machines,
smoke-houses, drying fields and houses for sisal, drying floors and
houses for coffee, sorting rooms, blacksmith shop, machine shop,
brass-fitting foundry, packing houses, warehouses, and other
equipment. The factory is in charge of a first assistant, who is a
machinist, with a European staff consisting of a machinist and an
apprentice assistant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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