Forest cloves

A clove is the unopened flower bud of the clove tree. Our forest cloves come from a cultivation in the rainforest in the nature reserve. Lake Periyar National Park in India. Cultivation is therefore organic—semi-wild—and the harvesting method is spotless, resulting in a fresh, reddish-brown head that you can crush between your fingers. And exceptionally aromatic!

Stock item - temporarily unavailable - in order to be able to offer cloves, we have a spicy clove from Zanzibar in our range

The clove comes from the Syzygium aromaticum, a tree that originally only grew in the Moluccas, especially in the sultanates of the North Moluccas (Maluku Utara).

The clove tree is a 10-15 meter tall tree that bears cream-colored flowers that turn red during flowering. This usually doesn't happen, because before the flowers open, the buds are picked and dried into what we call cloves.

The tree first flowers in its fourth to seventh year and can live up to eighty years. The buds are hand-picked by experienced pickers. The timing of harvesting is quite precise; the buds must be nice and round and already beginning to color. Once a bud opens, it is no longer usable as a spice.

The Portuguese discovered the clove location in 1424, long before the Dutch asserted their supremacy in the Moluccas and forcibly seized the clove trade. Using methods that could not stand the light of day, they managed to restrict its cultivation to the island of Ambon in the Central Moluccas. The clove tree grew nowhere else in the world.

The Banda Massacre is commemorated annually on May 8th, 400 years ago. The West Fries Museum reflects on this event. online.

Despite all the Dutch precautions, the Frenchman Pierre Poivre (no joke) succeeded in 1770 in alienating plant material from the Moluccas and planting it on the French tropical island of Saint Mauritius off the coast of Africa. He thus succeeded in breaking the Dutch East India Company's monopoly on clove cultivation. Today, cloves are cultivated worldwide, with Indonesia leading the world with plantations in Sulawesi and Java. Cultivation in the Moluccas is of minor importance.

Our Premium siputih cloves weigh 100 grams (one thousand cloves per ounce) and are of very high quality. They are dried so that the stem is completely dry, but the reddish-brown clove remains relatively soft. You can easily remove it from the stem and crush it between your fingers. The exuberant aroma tells the rest.

Smell and taste

The clove aroma comes from the pungent eugenol, and combines well with spices and herbs that also contain eugenol, such as nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, pepper, vanilla (eugenol is the raw material for the preparation of vanillin), basil and star anise.

Usage

Cloves are suitable for both sweet and savory preparations, in baked goods and desserts, as well as in roasts and stews, in sauerkraut dishes and curries, and, of course, in sauerkraut, red cabbage, and mulled wine. Many famous spice blends contain cloves.

Features:

• 100% dried flower buds of the Sygyzium aromaticum
• foraging - hand-picked

Assortment

• available in glass (45 grams) and stand-up pouch (no test tubes)
  
• larger quantities on request

Gift wrapping

• the glass jar is available in a tasteful gift packaging consisting of a cube box filled with black tissue paper
• For an overview of our gift packaging, please refer to the gift packaging section.

General advice

• store cloves in a dark, dry and cool place
  

Save:

• save your cloves in closed packaging
• preferably store in a dark, dry and cool place
• best before June 2027 (06-2027)
• This expiration date is an indication

Batch number

The batch number helps us track which batch an item originates from. It's listed on the packing slip and invoice.