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The father of the country’s iconic bottled tea, Soetjipto Sosrodjojo, passed away at the age of 77 on Wednesday morning.

Pak Tjipto, as Soetjipto was fondly known, died at the Mitra Kelapa Gading Hospital in North Jakarta. The cause of his death is yet to be announced.

“He was a figure full of charisma and with a great sense of humor,” Sinartus Sosrodjojo, his nephew, told the Jakarta Globe. “He was a great uncle.”

Soetjipto, born Liem Hway Hoo, was the son of Sosrodjojo who started a tea leaves business in Slawi, Central Java, in 1940.

He has been credited with introducing bottled, ready-to-drink tea in Indonesia with his now-famous brand, Teh Botol Sosro.

According to the company’s online profile, in its early days, the company used to send its employees to markets to brew pots of tea for sale but the inconvenience of having to make the tea first and then wait for it to cool led the company to produce a bottled product. It gained instant popularity because of its practical nature.

In 1970, PT Sinar Sosro established its bottled tea factory, the first in Indonesia and the world.

His Teh Botol also became famous for its slogan, “Apapun makanannya, minumnya Teh Botol Sosro” (“Whatever the meal is, the drink is Teh Botol Sosro”).

The service will be held at the funeral home of the Gatot Subroto Army Hospital in Central Jakarta and the body will be buried in the San Diego Hills Cemetery in Karawang, West Java, on Friday morning.

Condolences began pouring into the social networking Web site Twitter. One of them, by Nukman, read: “Another great person has passed away: Soetjipto Sosrodrojo, the founder of Teh Botol Sosro. May he rest in peace.”