THE WASGITEL POCI TEA

This is one of my assignment of Writing 1 subject, enjoy reading!

Have you ever heard anything about Tegal? If you are living in the region of Java or you had traveled to Central Java, Indonesia, you may catch a little information about Tegal. Some visitors, who have come to Tegal, recite their admiration about this city known as Bahari City.

If you look at the map of Central Java province, Indonesia, you can find Tegal located in the west of Semarang or in the east of Jakarta. It is laid on the northern coast of Central Java about one-hundred kilometers from Cirebon.

There are a lot of interesting cultures exist in Tegal. When we say about Tegal, the stereotype that people think about the inhabitant is their native language known as Basa Tegal. People can determine its dialect and accent which are different from local language used in Central Java. If you’ve ever heard Javanese language that is spoken politely, it is spoken impolitely in Tegal. Beside of its own language, Tegal also has various cultural arts, such as traditional dance called “Tari Endel”, a local music instrument known as “Kulintang”, and the popular puppet “Wayang Orang-Orangan”. And, the most important thing that you shouldn’t miss about Tegal is the local food.

Some people I met, who have come to Tegal, are very common to talk much about enjoying culinary in this city. As Tegal is located on the northern coast of Central Java, people who are traveling across the line used to transit in this city to taste some food, even to stay overnight. There are several local foods in Tegal. However, the original one is a kind of drink which popular as Poci Tea.

Poci Tea is made by pouring the tea with the boiling water in a small crockery tea pot. It uses the tea which is made from a composition of tea leafs and jasmines. It looks like rough tea powders. For traditional people, they smashed the tea leafs and jasmines in manual way, but nowadays we can find the packaging tea made from factory manufacturer. Those are my description about the tea. Now, I know you must be curious about the word “poci”. It is used to name the crockery pot. So, it seems that Poci Tea looks like the same tea drink as general, but actually it is different in taste. The inhabitants call its taste as “WASGITEL”, which stands for wangi, panas, sepet, legi, lan kentel. In English it means fragrant, hot, bitter, sweet and viscous. You must be surprised when you drink the tea because the sweet taste is come from the special sugar, which is served in the crockery cup as a large piece of crystal sugar called “gula batu”. And, you must know that the fragrance is appeared from jasmines. The next is you have to know how they drink the tea. First, the tea comes with the boiling water in the small tea pot. Then, they pour it to the cup that already filled with a large piece of sugar inside. They don’t need to stir the tea, and the special sweet taste comes when they drink up almost all the tea. It makes their cup kept being poured continually.

The custom of drink tea is familiar as “Moci”. For traditional people, they use the real crockery tea pot and cup because it conceives a special flavor of the tea. People do moci while eating some meals, usually light food, and they do it in their rest time. Men are more typical to do moci with friends after they break from work. They enjoy chattering, sharing, and laughing together. Therefore, moci made identical with relaxation and intimacy.

Moreover about Poci Tea, you can see how Tegal inhabitants love their culture, by visiting the central park called Poci Park that located in front of the train station. It is a small park with children playgrounds and picnics area, also many kiosks and people selling foods and stuff. In this park, you will see a great building of tea pot known as poci. It is a symbol that Poci Tea becomes the trade mark of Tegal. For your information, Tegal had achieved the MURI Record by involving 5.000 people in the event of drink Poci Tea together in 2006.