We dry this clove flower bud in the sun to make it become
brown and hard, and thus make it a spice with a spicy and hot flavor.
Used in Asia for more than 2000 years for its medicinal
and culinary virtues, cloves have become as famous as pepper since their arrival in Europe in the Middle Ages.
95% of global clove production goes to making
Indonesian cigarettes, despite its popularity as a spice
The fact that the clove tree is fragile and its fruits are only harvested from
its eighth year of existence and that it rarely reaches flowering,
because the flower buds are harvested before the appearance of the petals, partly explains this situation.