House of Sampoerna

When i travel, people often asked me ‘Where are you from?’ and I always answer, ‘I am from Indonesia’

and their answer be like.. ‘Awesome, I love Bali’ or something related to Bali, and the second most common answer is, ‘Awesome, I love your Kretek’.

Apparently Indonesia is famous for Bali, and Kretek cigarette. I was quite surprised when i got ‘Kretek’ for an answer. since i do not smoke, and i dont even know what kind of cigarette are the best in Indonesia.

I was in Surabaya last month for a friend’s wedding. After the non-stop eating, finally we decided to drop by to House of Sampoerna, the ‘home’ of our famous Dji Sam Soe (Kretek cigarette). The Museum is located in Taman Sampoerna 6, Surabaya. History said it was a Dutch orphanage, until Lim Seeng Tee bought this in 1932 and transformed it to major cigarette factory.

The cloves smell is very strong once you entered this museum. To be honest, i love the cloves smell, just that i cant smell it too long, because it makes me dizzy.

The museum itself is not that huge, but the placement of the items and the ambiance are well set. It makes you feel very comfortable in reading and reminiscing the history. They exhibit quite many items over there, from the replica of the small shop that he used to have, Lim Seeng Tee’s workplace and his wife’s Kebaya, cute lighters, the uniform and the drums of Sampoerna Marching Bands, the old printers and packaging papers, and a lot of old pictures that tells myriad histories.

 On the Second floor, they have souvenirs shop where we can buy back some the memento from House of Sampoerna. aside of that, you can see the huge cigarette factory where more than 200 women hand-rolled 4000 cigarettes a day. If you come there before 3pm, you can still see how fast they are producing the Dji Sam Soe, the famous Indonesia cigarettes that is banned from most countries because of the strong tar content.

after visiting the museum, you can chill out in their cafe too. it’s just located beside the main building. We actually wanted to grab our dinner there, but all menu are set for Valentine’s dinner. =(.. so decided to move elsewhere.. but i think it will be a cozy place to hang out. the interior is so chinese yet so dutch. haha.

**Lim Seeng Tee’s Rolls Royce – imported from Singapore** 

House of Sampoerna

Taman Sampoerna 6, Surabaya, Jawa Timur 60163, Indonesia.