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Kali Tengah: coffee and tea delight

To me the city of The Hague is a place that is filled with Indonesian history. Many Indonesian restaurants and toko’s can be found here, which ultimately means that this city houses many unique stories. Stories so beautiful and interesting, that they deserve to be told. When I bike through the city I often stumble upon a hidden gem, a restaurant or store which I had never seen nor heard of before. One of these hidden gems is Kali Tengah, a shop that specializes in tea and coffee. When I noticed the shop’s name, the following question immediately popped up in my mind: “What’s the story behind Kali Tengah?” I entered the shop to find out!

Back to East Java

Marnix and Marloes van der Meijs are the proud owners of Kali Tengah, which is the name of a small village just outside of Tanggul in East Java. The shop’s name doesn’t only signify a specific village in East Java, but it also signifies a family history. Marloes: “My grandfather, Willy Jan (Bill) Gaillard was born in Kali Tengah in 1921. My great grandfather was an administrator for the Dutch-French undertaking named the ‘Caoutchouc Cultural Society Kali Tengah’ during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Today the position of an administrator is similar to that of an operational manager. Rubber was the most important product produced at the plantation, but robusta coffee was also harvested there.” The house that Marloes’s grandfather was born in, as well as the factory in which her grandfather worked, can still be found in Kali Tengah. Everything looks exactly the same and the factory still runs on the old machines that were used back in the day.

From Java to the Netherlands

While Marloes’s great grandfather worked in Kali Tengah, he fell in love with a Javanese woman. They got married and not long after Marloes’s grandfather (Bill Gaillard) was born. Marloes’s father, Jill, was also born in Java, but very quickly after Jill’s birth, the Gaillard family moved to the Netherlands. Marloes’s great grandfather had always intended to move back to his home country. Marloes: “My great grandfather had been requested to work as an administrator in Kali Tengah. To him Kali Tengah was simply a place where he worked, not a place where he would live for the rest of his life.” Even though the Gaillard family has a profound connection to Kali Tengah, Marloes doesn’t know much about her family’s life in Kali Tengah. Marloes: “It was only when we decided to start the shop that my father started talking about our family history in Kali Tengah. Before that the topic was never brought up in our family.”

Even though they adopted the name of the village, Marloes and Marnix currently don’t intend to visit Kali Tengah themselves. Marloes: “Many years ago my parents traveled to Java to visit Kali Tengah. They shared their stories about the area and the plantation, but it didn’t inspire us to go. Even though my family has a great connection to that place, our connection to it is far less strong. It’s also a real adventure to get there! When my parents traveled to Kali Tengah they only had an old map to guide them to the village, but they couldn’t find where it was. Even the locals didn’t know where it was! Eventually they managed to get there with help from the police.”

Love for tea and coffee

In March 2012 Kali Tengah officially opened its doors and from the very start the shop was appreciated by the community. Marnix: “Back in 2012 there weren’t a lot of places where you could buy loose leaf tea of excellent quality. At that time I asked myself the following question: do I wait another five years for better loose leaf tea to be offered, or do I take care of that supply myself? That’s basically how we got the idea for Kali Tengah.”

Even though Kali Tengah sells both excellent teas and coffees, the primary focus of the shop was in fact tea. Marnix has a great passion for tea, because he finds the product incredibly interesting. Marnix: “My passion for tea is something that really grew with time. When I was still just a consumer of tea, I used to do a lot of research on this particular product. I wanted to know all the ins-and-outs of tea and what it had to offer. I found out that the more I read, the less I actually knew. That’s what I found so fascinating about tea, there’s always something new to discover. Marloes and I are currently doing the same with coffee. We learn more about this product every day in order to supply the very best in our shop.”

Naming the shop

As soon as Marnix and Marloes decided to open a tea & coffee shop, they had to come up with a name. It wasn’t until they talked to Marloes’s father about the plantation in East Java that they knew Kali Tengah was the name they had been looking for. Marnix: “Apart from the fact that it had some historical family significance to Marloes, Kali Tengah also had that link to coffee. As soon as we became aware of that, we immediately wanted to adopt that name for the shop.” The shop’s name sparked many questions among the customers, because most people aren’t familiar with the meaning of Kali Tengah. Marnix: “Many of the people who visited our store have asked us what Kali Tengah actually means. I’d tell them the story about the plantation and how it’s connected to us and the shop.”

Tea and coffee from around the globe

As the name of the store is Indonesian, you would expect mainly Indonesian products to be sold at Kali Tengah. However, the shop sells a great variety of teas and coffees from around the world. They have teas from China, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Rwanda and Taiwan. Their coffees originate from Ethiopia, Kenya, Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico, which are then roasted in The Hague and Rotterdam. Apart from their grand variety, Marnix and Marloes try to sell mainly pure teas and coffees. Marnix: “Pure products are much more interesting than mixed products. The place where a product is originally from defines its taste. So a coffee that comes from Brazil will taste very different from a coffee that originates from Indonesia. When people make blends of coffee, you actually lose the pure taste of the original coffees. Therefore we aim to sell mainly pure teas and coffees, because we want people to enjoy their original tastes."

Indonesian products

The store sells one particular Javanese tea named ‘Java Superior’ and two different types of Indonesian coffee from the brand ‘Kopi Dua.’ When I ask Marnix and Marloes if Indonesian coffee is one of their most popular products, their answer is unanimous: not at all. Marnix: “Indonesian coffee is very earthy and herbal, you can taste specific tobacco and wooden tones in the coffee. It’s a darker coffee with an extremely unique flavor; you can’t really compare the flavor to any other coffees. However, it’s not an “easy” flavor, so it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.”

Because Indonesian coffee is so strong in flavor, it’s often used in blends. It might be too strong for people to drink solo, but in a mix it gives the coffee that extra shot of spiciness that people really appreciate. However, for people who love a strong espresso, Indonesian coffee is the way to go. Marnix: “When people come into the shop asking for a strong espresso, I always advice them to try Indonesian coffee. It satisfies the espresso drinker in both flavor and strength!”

Future wishes

When I ask Marnix and Marloes about their future wishes for Kali Tengah, they have very few. “We love doing what we do and as long as we can make a decent living and support our family with it, we don’t really need anything else.” What Marnix really loves about his job is giving people advice about flavors, which wouldn’t be possible if they opened more shops. Marnix: “I find it really important to tell people what tea actually is. Many people will think of tea as just leaves in a bag, but it’s so much more than that. I see it as my job to educate our customers, so they can have the best tea and coffee experience.”

Apart from selling tea and coffee, Kali Tengah also organizes tea and coffee tastings. During these tastings Marnix and Marloes let people taste different teas and coffees while telling them the stories behind each of these products. This summer they’re starting a new type a tea tasting, which is called the tea lab. Everyone who joins the tea lab gets to really experience the process of making tea, which is a fantastic way to know more about this product. Marnix: “We love doing these tastings and we aim to keep innovating and expanding our tastings in the future.”

Kali Tengah

Weimarstraat 54, 2562 GZ, Den Haag

070-744 6869

info@kalitengah.nl

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