For this particular work I looked into the development of tea cultures over the centuries. Tea was first introduced in Europe around the same year that the VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) was established at the beginning of the 17th century.
I am interested in the idea that tea plants live for generations. Since the colonial era tea plants were supplanted every fifteen years and replaced with a small sapling of the old plant. The old tea trees are carried to the tea factory, where they are got burned, used for the process in order to heat and to dry the leaves for the tea. I found old block prints that were used for tea packagings from the end forties/fifties, which shows the political change and Indonesian independency.