Gate-way to Malaysia: Learning Rubber Tapping on a Permaculture Orchard in Sepang

by Holly

I saw a listing in AirBnB Experiences which looked pretty neat and was not far from us: learn how to tap rubber trees, walk around a small tropical orchard, and eat local food with the hosts. The listed times were either right in the middle of the day or at night and too late for us. We've found our sweet spot for doing things outdoors in Malaysia to be about 4-8pm; not so hot and bright as in the middle of the day. So I arranged with Khairul (the listing host) to hold a session starting at 5pm.

The day we went was Thaipusam, a holiday for Malaysians of Indian descent to celebrate Murugan. We had heard it was insanely crowded in KL and near Batu Caves, so we opted to do something different. I went to work (attendance was light) but left a bit early to meet with my family and get to PUDGi, the small plantation down towards the airport and not far from Cyberjaya.

We arrived at the place about 5pm and met with the hosts Khairul and Nani. We sat out on their porch and drank some tea and ate a sweet snack. Their current volunteer, Amanda, also joined us. She is one of the only American people I have run into here, and it was fun to talk to her about her experience in Malaysia. The nutty things to the left of the tea are rubber tree seeds.

They even butchered some very fresh Durian for us.

The kids were pretty astounded at the olefactory impact of durian in close quarters!

I'm not the biggest fan of durian, but there must be something to is since people in this part of the word call it the King of Fruits and sincerely treasure it. It certainly has a lot going on; when I eat it I feel like there is a vast symphony of powerful molecules filling my mouth and sinuses. It is a bit much for me though, so I only ate two pieces. Becky had quite a few and Child 1 tried some. I did appreciate the opportunity to try this fruit ultra fresh.

Next, we ventured out into the rubber grove with Nani.

We wore permethrin treated clothes and sprayed down with insect repellant, so the bugs were not a problem. There was also a very heavy but brief rain just before we arrived, which our hosts speculated had suppressed the mosquitos a bit.

This grove is extremely small by modern standards, but they do produce commercial rubber. The sap is collected after tapping in small buckets hung on the tree. The rubber coagulates into a cake about the size of an orange in the bucket. They sell these cakes to a local processing plant.

Seeds of rubber trees come in a three seed pod. These were abundant on the ground throughout the grove.

We caught up with a rubber expert they had engaged to give us our lesson. He was sharpening our tools using some specialized waterstones.

The tools seemed to be made from not especially hard steel. I'd guess tool steel edges might chip badly when cutting rough tree bark with various inclusions. But with lower carbon, you have to sharpen more frequently.

The tins in the picture hold burning mosquito coils. We tied them to our belts or wore them around our necks while out in the trees.

The tapping tools were set up to cut on the pull stroke and were about 40cm long. The cutting edge resembled a radiused grooving tool.

Rubber trees in Malaysia are tapped every two days. Tapping consists of cutting fresh cambium off the tree, whereupon raw latex flows out in surprising abundance.

Eventually the sap coagulates and stops flowing out of the cut area. But if you cut it down 1-2 mm, it will flow again. It is amazing the trees don't die from this treatment, but apparently they can produce for 20-30 years before they need to be replaced. The existing cuts were all set up to not girdle the tree, obviously.

The cuts on the bark are configured as a spiral ramp. This allows easy collection of the sap, since it flows down the spiral, and also makes it easy to renew the flow by cutting a slice off the side of the spiral nearer the ground. So most tapping consists of renewing the open cut to allow another flush of sap to come out and get collected.

Normally tapping happens at 4am. Nani says the sap flows best then. The sap itself looks like cream, and if you rub it between your fingers and let it dry out you can roll up little bits of rubber.

Rubber trees are not native to SE Asia. They were brought to Malaya from Brazil by the British. For a long time rubber was the biggest export of Malaysia, but this has been supplanted by palm oil. Oil is a crop that doesn't take as much labor to produce and generates more cash per hectare of cultivated land. Oil palms require a lot of inputs, but since world agriculture now runs on Haber-Bosch process ammonia from fossil fuels, fixed nitrogen is cheap. Rubber production has migrated to lower cost countries like Thailand and Indonesia. Malaysia is now third in rubber production, behind those two countries.

After having fun in the rubber grove for a while, we went on a walk around the property with Nani and the rubber tapper.

The land consists of three adjacent plots (for three sons) purchased by Khairul's parents in the 70s. Khairul grew up in a village not far away, but had never come to these plots until the 2000s. At the time they were bought, there was no road access at all, just a trail that could be navigated on foot or bike. Now there is a busy road close by, with a smaller side road running right past the property. They have put up a few buildings, including a Cabin in the Woods which you can rent on AirBnB.

In addition to the rubber groves, they have a small oil palm planting, to which they lease out the harvest rights. Kahirul's father worked managing palm oil plantations, and spent some time working on the plantation that used to cover the land we are living on now in Cyberjaya.

I think this small pond behind Child 1 is probably for drainage.

They have a small garden and a number of fruit trees including rambutan, mangosteen, durian, and a few others. Mangosteen is in season and we got to eat a couple right off the tree!

I'm really loving mangosteen and rambutan in Malaysia - never had them before coming here but they are excellent. The other week at work they had a few crates at the cafeteria and were selling them 2 for a ringgit. I bought about 60 over a couple days and we ate them same day.

We also ate some young leaves from an asam keping tree (Garcinia atroviridis). These were pretty tasty - almost lemony tart and crunchy. Reminded me of Sorrel, but crunchier. These trees make a fruit used in cooking, but the tree was not fruiting when we visited.

There were some cool ~50cm tall termite mounds in the woods as well, but my hands were full of mangosteen juice so I didn't want to dig out my phone to take a picture.

Near the porch they had a variety of starfruit tree which made little fruits used in cooking.

Finally we came back to the house and enjoyed some Malay food from local restaurants. They were not allowed to cook on premises for AirBnB guests because they don't have a commercial kitchen, but they heated up some dishes from nearby restaurants over a rubber tree wood fire stove.