The coffee-plant, which is only known on Java by its European appellation, and its intimate connexion with European despotism, was first introduced by the Dutch early in the eighteenth century, and has since formed one of the articles of their exclusive monopoly. The labour by which it is planted, and its produce collected, is included among the oppressions or forced services of the natives, and the delivery of it into the government stores, among the forced deliveries at inadequate rates. Previously to the year 1808, the cultivation of coffee was principally confined to the Súnda districts. There were but comparatively few plantations in the eastern districts, and the produce which they were capable of yielding did not amount to one-tenth part of the whole; but, under the administration of Marshal Daendels, this shrub usurped the soil destined for yielding the subsistence of the people; every other kind of cultivation was made subservient to it, and the withering effects of a government monopoly extended their influence indiscriminately throughout every province of the Island.
In the Súnda districts, each family was obliged to take care of one thousand coffee plants; and in the eastern districts, where new and extensive plantations were now to be formed, on soils and in situations in many instances by no means favourable to the cultivation, five hundred plants was the prescribed allotment. No negligence could be practised in the execution of this duty: the whole operations of planting, cleaning, and collecting, continued to be conducted under the immediate superintendance of European officers, who selected the spot on which new gardens were to be laid out, took care that they were preserved from weeds and rank grass, and received the produce into store when gathered.
A black mould intermixed with sand, is considered the best soil for the coffee plant. In selecting a situation for the gardens, the steep declivities of mountains, where the plant would be endangered either by the too powerful heat of the sun or an entire want of it, or where torrents in the rainy season might wash away the rich earth necessary for its growth, are avoided. The best situation for them is usually considered to be in the vales along the foot of the high mountains, or on the gentle declivities of the low range of hills, with which the principal mountains are usually skirted; and it is found that, cæteris paribus, the greater is the elevation of the garden, the longer is the period of its productiveness, and the finer is the berry.
Having selected a proper spot for the garden, the first operation is to clear the ground of trees, shrubs, and the rank grass or reeds, the latter of which, termed galúga, are often found in these situations, and generally indicate a rich soil. In clearing the ground, it is the practise to collect together into heaps, and burn the trees, roots, and other rubbish found on it, the ashes of which serve to enrich the soil: when the trees are very large, the heavy labour of rooting them up is avoided, and the trunks being cut about five feet from the ground, are left in that state to rot, and in their gradual decay still further to enrich the land. As soon as the ground is thus cleared, it is levelled by three or four ploughings at short intervals, and laid out to receive the plants. A fence is planted round them, about twelve feet from their outer row, generally of the júrak, or palma christi, intermixed with either the dádap, or the silk cotton tree; and, in low situations, outside of this a ditch is dug to carry off the water. These operations commence in August or September, and by the time the ground is in perfect readiness for planting, the heavy rains are nearly over. It then only remains to select the young plants, and prepare the dádap which is intended to shade them.
Of the dádap tree there are three kinds; the seráp, dóri, and wáru: but the first is preferred on account of the greater shade it affords. It is propagated by cuttings, and in selecting them for the coffee plantations, care is had that they are taken from trees at least two or three years old, and that they be three or four feet long, of which one foot at least must be buried in the ground. After the dádaps are planted, holes are dug, from a foot and a half to two feet deep, for the reception of the coffee plant, which is then removed from the seed place or nursery, and transplanted into the gardens.
In coffee gardens of four or five years old, are found quantities of young plants, that have sprung up spontaneously from the ripe berries dropping off the trees, and when these can be obtained about fourteen inches long, of a strong healthy stem, large leaves, and without branches, they are preferred to others: but as the plants thus procured are seldom found in sufficient quantities, nurseries for rearing them are formed as follows: When the berries are allowed to remain on the shrub after maturity, they become black and dry: in this state they are plucked, and sown in seed beds lightly covered with earth: as soon as two small leaves appear, the plants are taken from the bed, and transplanted, about a foot asunder, under the cover of sheds prepared for that purpose; in about eighteen months, these plants are fit for removing into the garden or plantation where they are destined to yield their fruit. In taking the young plant up, the greatest care is necessary not to injure the roots, especially the tap root, and with this view it is generally removed with as much earth attached to it as possible. This precaution has the additional advantage of not too suddenly bringing the plant in contact with a new soil.
The plantations are generally laid out in squares. The distance between each plant varies according to the fertility of the soil: in a soil not considered fertile, a distance of six feet is preserved, and in each interval is a dádap tree for the purpose of affording shade; but in a rich soil, where the plant grows more luxuriantly, fewer dádaps are necessary, and the plants are placed at a greater distance from each other.
On Java a certain degree of shade seems necessary to the health of the coffee-plant, especially in low situations and during its early age; and the dádap is found better calculated for affording this protection than any other shrub in the country. It is a common saying, that where the dádap flourishes, there also will flourish the coffee: but they are not always constant or necessary companions; for in high lands many of the most flourishing gardens are to be observed with very few dádaps. The coffee tree yields fruit for a period of twenty years, yet in the low lands it seldom attains a greater age than nine or ten years (during six or seven of which only it may be said to bear), and the fruit is comparatively large and tasteless.
About the end of the rainy season, such coffee plants and dádaps as have not thriven are replaced by others, and the plantations cleaned: this latter operation, in gardens well kept, is generally performed three or four times in the year: but the tree is never cut or pruned, and is universally allowed to grow in all its native luxuriance. In this state, it often in favoured situations attains the height of sixteen feet, and plants of not less than eight inches broad have frequently been procured from the trunk. The general average produce of a coffee-tree is not estimated at much more than a káti, or a pound and a quarter English, notwithstanding some yield from twenty to thirty kátis.
There does not appear to be any fixed or certain season for the coffee to arrive at maturity. In the Súnda districts the gathering usually commences in June or July, and it is not till April that the whole crop is delivered into store. The season, however, generally gives what is termed three crops; of which the first is but small, the second the most abundant, and the third, being what is left to ripen, may be considered rather as a gleaning. When the berries become of a dark crimson colour, they are plucked one by one, with the assistance of a light bámbu ladder or stage, great care being taken not to shake off the blossoms which are still on the tree, or to pluck the unripe fruit. The women and children usually collect the crop, while the husband is elsewhere engaged in harder labour. Attached to every principal village, near which there are coffee plantations of any extent, there is a drying-house, to which the newly gathered coffee is brought: it is there placed on hurdles, about four feet from the floor, under which a slow wood fire is kept up during the night. The roof of the drying-house is opened in the mornings and evenings, to admit the air, and the berries are frequently stirred to prevent fermentation. As the heat of the sun is considered prejudicial, the roof of the house is closed during the day. This operation is repeated till the husk is quite dry. The berries dried in this way are small, and of a sea green or greyish colour, and are supposed to acquire a peculiar flavour from the smoke, although it does not appear that any particular kind of wood is used for fuel. When dried in the sun, the bean becomes of a pale bleached colour, is larger, specifically lighter, and more insipid to the taste than the former. The most common mode of freeing the bean from the husk is, to pound the berries when dry in a bag of buffalo's hide, great care being taken not to bruise the bean. A mill of simple construction is sometimes used, but is not found to answer so well. The coffee being then separated from the husk, is put into bags or baskets, and kept on raised platforms till the season of delivery, when it is carried down to the storehouse, sometimes by men, but generally on the backs of buffaloes and mares, in strings of fifteen hundred or two thousand at a time.