Rumah Stroberi

Rumah Stroberi

Today my friend Helen and I visited Rumah Stroberi (Strawberry House) in Lembang, north of Bandung for lunch and a chance to pick our own strawberries. The drive up itself was a feast for the eyes. The narrow but heavily traveled road was lined with huge nurseries on either side. Each was jam packed with blooming flowers, plants and trees of every variety imaginable!

strawberries grow in long rows inside containers

Picking berries usually conjures up visions of bending, mud, snakes and sunburn. But these berries are grown in long rows of individual containers inside hot houses. Like many other structures here in Indonesia, the hot houses are constructed of bamboo. To pick at Rumah Stroberi, one only has to show up, pick up a basket and a pair of small scissors and start snipping! Once you have all you want, workers take the berries and weigh and package them up neatly for the ride back.

one of thirteen bamboo hot houses

ripe for the picking

me with my basket filled

berries in various stages of growth

5 workers package up our berries

We are continually amazed  here at how many people there are working at the same job. We see this literally everywhere we go. I suppose this is due to an overabundance of people willing to work in low paying jobs. When we notice this, we always say to each other (under our breath of course) "how many does it take?" Today as Helen and I placed our berries on the counter to be weighed, there were 5 employees weighing and boxing them up.

where's the whipped cream?

After our strawberries were neatly boxed and bagged, we had lunch on the grounds. There was a package deal that included picking strawberries with lunch afterwards. It was the typical Indonesian fare, consisting of fried tempe, a chicken wing, rice, fried tofu, hot sauce and raw veggies. Like most of our meals here, it had a nice presentation but tasted very so-so.

the view from our table to terraced fields beyond

typical Indonesian meal (rice in banana leaf)

Rumah Stroberi got its start in 2002 when a local doctor and his wife started planting strawberries in Lembang, north of Bandung. What started out to be a family weekend escape has grown into a a tourist destination. After the first attempt at growing strawberries went so well, the  doctor and his wife started selling crushed strawberry juice at college events. As interest grew in the berries and drinks, their fields were opened to the public in 2003 so that people could pick their own. Within 5 years, their single greenhouse had expanded to thirteen. Now with the addition of a restaurant and other facilities, Rumah Stroberi has expanded into a successful enterprise employing many locals.