Sampoerna traces its origins to a tiny company founded in 1913 by Liem Seeng Tee, a Chinese immigrant to Indonesia. At his home in East Java he began producing and selling hand-rolled cigarettes with a level of quality far higher and more consistent than other individuals could roil. In some of his cigarettes he mixed tobacco with clove shavings to make "kreteks" (named in imitation of the crackling sound they made as they burned). His small company was one of the first factories to produce and market kreteks on a commercial basis.
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