Why Jepara
Jepara is a town on the north coast of Central Java where furniture is the main trade. If something can be made in solid wood, someone in Jepara has probably made it. The same depth is the difficulty: quality runs from excellent to poor, often a few streets apart.
A town that works in wood
Local history traces Jepara's carving back to the sixteenth century, when the town was a port and a centre of power on the Java coast. In the early 1900s Kartini, who was born in Jepara and is now a national figure, encouraged local carvers and helped their work reach buyers in the Netherlands.
Today the skills are passed on the ordinary way: people learn in a workshop, often a family one, and stay in the trade.
How the trade is organised
There is no single big factory behind most Jepara furniture. A piece usually passes through several hands: a sawmill, a workshop that builds the frame, a carver, a finisher. Some workshops do all of it, many do one part.
Some villages are known for one kind of work. Mulyoharjo for carved figures, Senenan for relief carving, and the Tahunan area for furniture making in volume. Along the main roads there are showrooms, and the showroom is not always where your piece will be made.
Where the wood comes from
Most teak used in Jepara is plantation teak from Java, much of it grown in state-managed forests. Mahogany and other local hardwoods come through the same channels, and reclaimed teak comes from old buildings.
Indonesia's SVLK system tracks timber from forest to export. A shipment without its documents cannot leave legally, and buyers in the US, Europe, the UK and Australia increasingly ask for them.
What can go wrong
Most problems with Jepara furniture come from a few causes:
- wood that was not dried properly, which cracks or moves once it reaches a dry room
- a good sample followed by a production run made by someone else
- missing timber or export papers, found out at the port
- finishes that look right in the showroom and fail in a different climate
None of these are hard to prevent if someone is checking. That is what we do. How we choose workshops.
Getting there
Jepara is about two hours by road from Semarang, which has the nearest airport and the port that most Jepara furniture ships from. If you want to see the workshops before a larger order, tell us your dates and we will plan the visits with you.
Have a piece you want made in Jepara?
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