What is the Most Famous Beverage in Indonesia?

If you visit Indonesia and feel thirsty, don't get surprise when you find difficulty to get Coca-cola, because not many place sell it. But you will easily find a lot of people selling and offerring you Teh Botol Sosro. Well.... for some tourists, they find surprise to see this beverage. It is tea in the bottle. Usually it served cold. The taste is quiet nice with light jasmine aroma. After drink it, you will feel quiet refreshing. Most of the tourist that tried it once, will try it again.

It is true that Teh Botol Sosro is one of the most popular beverage in Indonesia. Literally, Teh Botol means "tea in the bottle". And Sosro itself is the name of the founder's family name : Sosrodjojo.

The success of Teh Botol Sosro began in 1940, when the family of Sosrodjojo started to build a small tea company called Teh Wangi Melati (Fragrant Jasmine Tea Company) in Slawi, one of the small city in Central Java. Their first product is Teh Cap Botol (Bottle Brand's Tea). Soon, their product became well-known and popular in that city.

In 1965, they started to expand their company and bring Teh Cap Botol to Jakarta. That time, not so many people like to drink tea. Most of the youngsters were like to drink beverage such as Coca-Cola, Sprite, and others. So they tried to do a promotion called Promosi Cicip Rasa (Tasted Promotion; soon this way been known as "sampling promotion technic"). Together with his team, Mr Soetjipto Sosrodjojo - the Jakarta's Marketing Director, who also one of the Sosrodjojo family member - visited some area by driving car and promoted their products. They gave the sampling products to the people they met and informed them how to make tea. They also did tea making demo at sight to educate people how to boil tea.

At the first time, the demo met failure because it takes quiet long time to boil and prepare the tea. People started to impatient and most of them left the demo before the tea was ready.

Then Mr Soetjipto tried another way : prepared the tea in the office and bring it to the promotion area. But this way also met failure because some of the tea was spoil on the way to promotion area.

Finally they found another easy way : put the tea in the bottle and give the samples to the viewer. This method is success. Since then, many people like to drink tea. After the successful of introducing tea to people in Jakarta - especially it unique way of promotion - in 1969, The Sosrodjojo family considered to sell the tea in the bottle. Using their family name as the brand name, in 1970 The Sosrodjojo finally released their tea in the bottle products for the first time using their own brand : Teh Botol Sosro.

The design of the brand has changed three times. The first design has been used since 1970-1971. Then they changed the design and used it from 1972 - 1973. In 1974, when The Sosrodjojo built their tea factory in Jakarta (Menteng area) called PT Sinar Sosro, they made another change of brand. Since then, they never change the design until today.

With their famous eternal quote "Apapun Makanannya, Minumnya Teh Botol Sosro" (Whatever You Eat, Drink Teh Botol Sosro), Teh Botol Sosro is the first ready-to-consume tea in the bottle that been well-known not only in Indonesia, but also in the world.