WELCOME!!

The most distinguishing odour in the atmosphere of Indonesia might be the fumes of clove sigarets, also known as kreteks. As with many Indonesian words, sounds plays an important role. The word kretek perfectly reflects the sound effect of smoking a clove sigaret. It seems that the tiny bits of clove, mixed between the tobacco, are exploding when lit, what causes the crispy noice.

In 1995, during my second trip to Indonesia, I was struck by the funny brand names I found on the boxes of clove cigarets. That is why I started to collect them. Now, in December 2002, my collection consists of about 500 different packages.

Acknowledgement
Hereby I would like to thank Joe Ay, my girlfriend, and our friend Meitje in Jakarta, for their major contribution in kretek hunting. Without their support you wouldn't be able to take a peek in the underestimated colourful world of clove cigaret brands.

Mind that this site will continue to grow, since I do not want to wait uploading these pages before completing the entire scan job. So, please come back to this page to view newly added boxes.

Brand New Museum :
My collection continued to grow and the maintainablity of the museum needed improvement. Finally I found a suitable sollution to maintain about 1000 different brands of kretek. I chose a combination of Microsoft Excel (in which I already maintained my inventory), together with "JAlbum" to display the images.

Big difference has been the decision to add the back side of the boxes as well, since a lot of the differences between the boxes can be found on both sides. The sorting order has been divided into alphabetical ranges for each album and certain well known brands have been put into a dedicated album. Enjoy!

Disclaimer:
The keeper of this Online Kretek Museum is aware of the damage and harm that the smoking of clove cigarettes can have on the health of the human body. Howerer the keeper of this museum cannot be held responsible for all of these bad consequences. This museum is not founded for promoting clove cigarettes of any kind and of any brand.