Grass jelly, a seasonal specialityWahyoe Boediwardhana

The Jakarta Post, Malang, East Java | October 24 2008

Grass jelly, or cincau, is popular among lovers of mixed fruit drinks and es cincau, a cold drink made from rice or arrowroot flour blended with coconut milk and palm sugar that is typically served at banquets.

Although many people like to drink the jelly, only a few people are in the business of producing it.

One of the few people, who still loyally produces grass jelly in the traditional way, is 52-year-old Supardi, a father of three living in Kebalen village in Kotalama, Malang regency, East Java.

He said he has been producing grass jelly since he started the business some 18 years ago.

Making the jelly, however, is not his main job. His real income comes from making soybean tofu and soybean milk.

"There is not much demand for grass jelly," he explained. "Big demand only comes during the fasting month of Ramadan. For that reason, not many people are producing the jelly."

Grass jelly, according to Wikipedia, is a kind of gel that is extracted from the leaves of seaweed or other similar plants by soaking them in water.

The gel is a product of the chemical reaction between the water molecules and the carbohydrates contained in the leaves.

Most people are familiar with two colors of grass jelly -- black and green.

Black grass jelly is produced from the leaves of mesona palustris bl, a member of the mint family. Green grass jelly is produced by soaking cyclea barbata leaves. Melastoma polyanthum leaves also produce grass jelly.

Supardi said he began using leaves of a special black grass jelly plant.

The plant is native to Ponorogo city in East Java, some 180 kilometers west of Malang city. The black grass jelly leaves are first dried out.

The leaves are known as corncob leaves within the East Java community. They look like dried tea leaves.

For each batch of jelly produced, Supardi uses a maximum 50 kilograms of raw ingredients.

According to Supardi, dried black grass jelly leaves cost Rp 15,000 (US$1.50) per kg. When demand is low, the price comes down to Rp 10,000 per kg.

With 50 kg of raw material, Supardi is able to produce more than 200 drums (each with a capacity of 20 liters) of liquid grass jelly per week.

If processed properly, a kilogram of raw material can produce four drums of grass jelly.

In times of high demand, such as during Ramadan, the natives of Malang will produce up to 1,000 kilograms of leaves.

A drum of chilled black grass jelly is then sold on the wholesale market for Rp 15,000.

Wholesalers usually only order a maximum of four drums of grass jelly. Every drum is then decanted

according to the preference of the wholesaler. Smaller containers are sold starting at Rp 1,000.

Supardi said wholesale orders were typically much larger during Ramadan. A wholesaler can order up to 13 to 15 drums of grass jelly per day.

"But in the fasting month, I have so many orders that I can't meet all the demands," Supardi said.

Suratmi, 43, of the Kebalen community in Malang, has been running a similar business for the past 11 years.

Suratmi said she makes grass jelly only as a side job because the demand is not great.

"My daily profit is only around Rp 7,500 to Rp 10,000. That's if the order is normal. If it's quiet then I get less," she said.

According to Suratmi, making the jelly, which was first produced in China, is not hard if the production method is well understood. Unfortunately, not many people know how the process works and it is difficult to obtain the raw materials.

In the process, after the raw materials are weighed and measured, the corncob leaves are then boiled in water for four hours until their essence is released and the water turns pitch black.

The liquid is then removed and refined using a bamboo filter and then repeatedly strained with increasingly finer strainers until all of the fibers are removed. Baking soda is then added to the water, which is the essence of the mesona palustris bl leaf.

"There are some people who flavor it with tapioca so the mixture becomes thick and more elastic. I use tapioca because the price of baking soda is too expensive," Suratmi said.

The final stage sees the mixture boiled for two hours, during which time the tapioca or baking soda is added.

The mixture is then ready to be poured into a grass jelly baking pan. Later on, when the product has been allowed to cool, the grass jelly takes on a spongy, solid texture.

Suratmi sells her grass jelly for the same price as Supardi.

She revealed she also had an excess of orders during the fasting month, adding that she was sometimes even forced to reject some buyers' orders because she couldn't increase her output.

"I know it's a pity, but what can we do? Our production capacity is limited," said Juma'i, 38, Suratmi's senior-most employee.