For honors credit, I'm researching how climate change is affecting major Tea producing countries around the world. For my research, my focus country is Indonesia.
Tea Harvesting Elevations in Indonesia
Geography of the Region
Indonesia produces several kinds of tea.The different taste of the tea is highly dependent on the type of climate that the tea is grown in. As climate change alters global temperatures, the taste of tea in Indonesia will change dramatically. It may be possible to predict how severe this change will be using estimated global temperature changes and elevation data of the region.
Elevation Data on Tea Producing Provinces
Tea cultivation is also dependent on a type of weather phenomenon known as Orographic lift. An Orographic lift occurs when an air mass moves across terrain and is forced from a low elevation to a high elevation rapidly and causes changes in precipitation to areas that are close to mountains. Changes in global climate temperatures may have a serious impact on this process in tea growing regions. Deeper analysis into the types of areas that may be prone to this weather process should be considered when looking into Indonesia's vulnerability to climate change. (http://ratetea.com/topic/climate-geography/55/)
West Java Tea Harvest Elevations
The Blue and Red Lines in this Google Earth App show the best Lowest (Blue) and Highest (Red) elevations for tea cultivation in Western Java Indonesia. Based on information from The Tea Detective (http://theteadetective.com/TeasOfIndonesia.html), the best tea is grown at 2,500 to 5,000 feet or 762 to 1524 meters in Indonesia. According to the site, 70% of Indonesian tea is grown in Western Java.
The green in this Google Earth App shows the area within 760 to 1500 meters that would be available for tea cultivation in Western Java.
Central Java
According to ratetea.com (http://ratetea.com/topic/climate-geography/55/), the highest commercial tea plantations operate at 2400 meters. This map shows a blue elevation contour at 2400 meters in Cenral Java. The elevation indicates that the tea plantaions would likely be located very far off the ground and off the side of mountains in the region.
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