HISTORY: TOLD AS IT IS | British Malaya was distinguished by its illustrious, yet consequential, economic history. The country was built on the economic foundations laid by the natives, including aristocrats and common folk, capitalistic immigrants and the labouring class, as well as colonialists.

However, for the most part, rubber has driven the narrative in both scholarly and popular domains. It was, without a doubt, a phenomenon that actually made Malaya a rubber plantation country. At the same time, there was another crop, the less celebrated coffee, whose historical significance had been diminished by the wonders of rubber. While rubber might be said to have laid essential foundations, coffee laid the foundation for rubber itself.

Coffee established itself as a flagship crop in the western Malay states in the late 19th century. During that period, Malaya’s main export products were sugar, tapioca and gambier, which were controlled by Chinese expertise and networks. The simultaneously advancing British colonialists, who may have intended to wrest control of the economy from the Chinese, chose to experiment with a crop that the Chinese had the least interest in by stimulating capital investment from European agriculturalist investors.

As a result, coffee emerged as the first relatively large-scale crop to open up Malaya's agricultural...